When freight trains involved in military logistics derail on Russian railways, official reports often say it is the result of “intervention by outsiders”. Thus, with just three words, railway workers in Russia are distorting Russians’ perception of news about accidents. Indeed, in fact, often the reasons for the derailment of freight trains used for military purposes are attacks by Ukrainian drones or the work of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine.

For example, on May 14, 2024, pro-Kremlin media, citing Russian railway workers, stated that in the Volgograd region, due to “interference by outsiders” in the operation of railway transport, freight train cars derailed. However, the real cause of the accident was precisely the attack of Ukrainian UAVs, and not abstract sabotage. As a result, at least nine fuel tanks derailed, two of which caught fire and one exploded.

Also, when 19 freight train cars derailed in the Riazan region in November 2023, the official channel of the Moscow Railway wrote that the reason for this was nothing more than “interference by outsiders”. In fact, the accident at that time was caused by the Ukrainian GUR in order to complicate the logistics of Russian troops in the area. But there is not a word about this in official communications.

So, every time pro-Kremlin sources resort to rhetoric about “intervention by outsiders” in the operation of the railway, they seek to hide the real cause of the accidents. According to the logic of federal propaganda, ordinary Russians should not think that incidents on Russian railways are an echo of a real war (and not the so-called “special military operation”), which has already come to the territory of Russia itself.