An unknown saboteur set fire to a relay cabinet near the railway tracks in the Mari El Republic, which caused a passenger train to be delayed. This is reported by the Telegram channel Shot.
According to the channel, the burning cabinet was noticed by a duty officer at the Pemba station in the Medvedevsky district. The arsonist first tried to break into two nearby cabinets, but was unable to do so. After that, he opened and set fire to the third. Because of this, the Yoshkar-Ola-St. Petersburg train had to be delayed for 13 minutes.
Police are searching for the man and face up to five years in prison.
After the start of a full-scale war in Ukraine, all over Russia, partisans began setting fire to military registration and enlistment offices and sabotaging railways. Also, the media reported about attempts to blow up railway tracks, sometimes law enforcement officers detained "rail partisans". In early 2023, arson continued, in January the FSB reported on the arrest of three teenagers who damaged objects on the Kursk railway line in the Moscow region. Now the partisans have also taken up relay cabinets; since the beginning of the year, at least six damages or arson have been reported in different regions of the country. The relay cabinet is a prefabricated structure, usually a metal case with two doors.