According to intelligence services, rail partisans are also active in Russia against Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin's war in Ukraine. "Ostanovi wagony!" – in German: Stop the wagons! – is the name of the anti-war movement that has specifically dedicated itself to the sabotage of military transports on the railway tracks. However, it is unclear who the organizers are.
Russia transports tanks and other heavy combat equipment, ammunition and fuel to the war zone in freight cars. The rail partisans want to prevent that, as they write on their website and on a Telegram channel that has more than 9,000 subscribers. There is a call for active participation in the resistance against the war, in which, for example, tracks are to be blocked by laying wires.
The mission is needed across Russia to cut off supplies for Russian troops in Ukraine. However, the Moscow and St. Petersburg railway junctions, the rail routes to and in Belarus, where rail partisans are also deployed, as well as the regions of Belgorod, Volgograd, Voronezh, Kaluga, Krasnodar, Rostov and the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea, illegally annexed by Russia, are particularly mentioned .
"If the two tracks are 'short-circuited' with a wire, then there is an automatic signal that the path is occupied - and the traffic light lights up red," says the instructions. "By sabotaging the work of the railway, you save lives on both sides of the front line!" Burning relay stations can also be seen in the movement's Telegram channel - with the note that this also helps to paralyze war traffic.
In the Russian public, the movement, which Western secret services called "Stop the wagons!" is mentioned, not known. However, the Russian domestic secret service FSB repeatedly reports that "terrorists" have been arrested or that acts of sabotage aimed at the war in Ukraine have been uncovered.
In early October, the FSB reported that an attack on a railway facility in the Kabardino-Balkaria region in the North Caucasus had been foiled. Two armed men were caught laying an explosive device there and then killed after resisting. "Ostanowi wagoni" reacted in horror.
