Ukraine’s security service blew up a railway connection linking Russia to China, in a clandestine strike carried out deep into enemy territory, with pro-Kremlin media reporting that investigators have opened a criminal case into a “terrorist attack.”

The SBU set off several explosions inside the Severomuysky tunnel of the Baikal-Amur highway in Buryatia, located some 6,000 kilometers east of Ukraine, a senior Ukrainian official with direct knowledge of the operation told POLITICO.

“This is the only serious railway connection between the Russian Federation and China. And currently, this route, which Russia uses, including for military supplies, is paralyzed,” the official said.

Four explosive devices went off while a cargo train was moving inside the tunnel. “Now the (Russian) Federal Security Service is working on the spot, the railway workers are unsuccessfully trying to minimize the consequences of the SBU special operation,” the Ukrainian official added.

Ukraine’s security service has not publicly confirmed the attack. Russia has also so far not confirmed the sabotage.

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[–] 361 points 2 years ago* (58 children)

OP missed the fun bit after the tunnel bombing:

The first cargo train exploded directly in the Severomuysky tunnel.

To continue transportation, the Russians began to use the detour route through the so-called Devil’s Bridge — a 35-meter high viaduct structure, which is part of the Trans-Siberian Railway. At that point, SBU saboteurs struck again.

“When the train was passing over this 35-meter high bridge, the explosive devices embedded in it went off,” the same official added.

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  • [–] 159 points 2 years ago (6 children)

    Damn impressive.

    Sounds straight out of a WWII action/spy/war movie.

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  • [–] 44 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    I think I played that mission in Commandos: Behind enemy Lines

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  • [–] 125 points 2 years ago (42 children)

    Thanks for the details

    Just to add, according to Denys Davidov's report on ukraine, the first train was carrying jet fuel, which added to the whole explosion.

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  • [–] 100 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (41 children)

    Jet fuel can't blow up steel beams! Wake up sheeple!

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  • [–] 19 points 2 years ago (34 children)

    Jet fuel can’t blow up steel beams! Wake up sheeple!

    Wasn't that the reason though that the Twin Towers in NY fell, because the jet fuel melted the steel beams infrastructure?

    I had read/seen that the buildings were actually designed to handle a plane crashing into them, but the architects didn't expect the metal beams to melt from the high-temperature burning jet fuel.

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  • [–] 28 points 2 years ago (7 children)

    My understanding is that the beams were sprayed with a fire retardant foam that is designed to protect it in the event of a typical building fire. But the violent impact of the jets would have stripped most of it off, and the jet fuel did indeed weaken the beams. They wouldn’t have melted outright, but softening them after already being damaged by the impact was more than it could handle.

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  • [–] 8 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (5 children)

    That's my understanding as well.

    And that the fire retardant foam was designed to be hit by an airplane and stay on, but it was just designed in those days for a smaller 737 impact, and not for a heavybody plane, so it got knocked off, exposing the beams.

    Edit: Lol, ok, meant beams, not beans.

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  • [–] 14 points 2 years ago (3 children)

    It didn't need to melt, raising the temperature of steel decreases it's strength.

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  • [–] 13 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    Yeah it's a really dumb meme because obviously it can. The ancient Romans worked steel, so obviously it doesn't have a particularly high melting temperature.

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  • [–] 25 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Jet fuel can't melt steel beams. It doesn't burn nearly hot enough.

    However, for a structure to fail you don't need to melt the beams, and getting them hot enough will also damage their structural integrity; they'll fail long before they reach the melting point.

    And this is what happened on 9/11.

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  • [–] 14 points 2 years ago

    Even wood alone is capable of getting steel red hot under the right condition. Given my experience was with metal floor grating in a burn barrel. The steel became easily malleable with just a metal rod.

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  • [–] 8 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    At the temperature Jet Fuel burns at, Steel becomes as flexible as cooked noodles, but technically they have not "melted."

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  • [–] [B] 5 points 2 years ago* (1 child)

    https://youtu.be/FzF1KySHmUA

    The conspiracy goes SO much deeper..... it's rumored that even physics is involved.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Melted beams or not, the WTCs design is what made it collapse like a peeling banana. The floors were essentially cantilevered out and held in place with a load bearing facade (for an open floor concept) There wasn't much holding the floors onto the facade, once the weight of the floors began to sag down it essentially started to lever and pull the beams of the central core apart from all sides like a banana peel.

    I don't think those buildings were built to withstand an airplane, at least not the one they were hit by. In hindsight that open floor concept may actually have been a stupid idea, at least the way it was executed.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago

    I don’t think those buildings were built to withstand an airplane, at least not the one they were hit by.

    From what I saw on a show that covered that a long time ago, they were, but not for the larger planes that we have today, but the ones that flew back in the 70's.

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  • [–] 5 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    Russia is shooting its own foot since the start of the war... an inside job sounds plausible at this point (kidding)

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  • [+] 28 points 2 years ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (7 children)