A Ukrainian man has been convicted in Kuban for planting explosives in trains carrying fuel.

The Krasnodar Regional Court sentenced Ukrainian citizen Igor Borisenko to a lengthy prison term, finding him guilty of attempted sabotage.

According to the prosecution, Borisenko, who lived in Nizhny Novgorod, agreed to assemble homemade explosive devices in July 2024 to blow up two freight trains carrying diesel fuel on the railway. He traveled to Moscow to obtain bomb components, and by August the explosive devices were ready. On September 7, 2024, the accused installed them in the mounting niches of tank cars on various trains at the Zeletsino railway station in the Kstovsky District of the Nizhny Novgorod Region.

According to the verdict, Borisenko attempted to detonate the explosive devices some time later by making phone calls, but the bombs had already been found and defused by that time – one was removed from the train at the Tuapse-Sortirovochnaya station in Tuapse, the other at the Yaroslavl-Glavny station. Igor Borisenko was subsequently detained by officers of the Kuban branch of the FSB.

"The destination of the train carrying the explosive device was the Tuapse sea terminal, where 65 tons of fuel and lubricants were to be unloaded," the United Press Service of the Courts of Krasnodar Krai said in a statement on January 14.

The court stated that the explosion of a tanker on the terminal's territory was intended to "undermine the economic security and defense capability of the Russian Federation": it "could have led to the cessation of rail traffic," damage to fuel and energy facilities, and damage to the infrastructure of the Tuapse seaport.

Borisenko was sentenced to 15 years in a maximum-security penal colony, with the first three years to be served in prison, and a fine of 1 million rubles. The court's press service did not specify whether he pleaded guilty.

The Krasnodar Krai Prosecutor's Office, in turn, clarified that the court confiscated the convicted man's property, "used in the commission of crimes," for state use. The agency did not specify what property was involved. The sentence was handed down on December 22, 2025, but has not yet entered into legal force, according to a post on the prosecutor's office's official Telegram channel on January 14.