A Rostov Region resident has been convicted in connection with a terrorist attack on a railway.

Nikolai Golubov was sentenced to 11 years in prison.

As reported by the "Caucasian Knot," in the southern regions of Russia, after the start of the military operation in Ukraine, there have been repeated arson attacks on railway and cellular communication equipment. Investigators are classifying these incidents as acts of sabotage and terrorism. On January 26, Arsanali Mutukov was sentenced to 12 years in Krasnodar Krai for pleading guilty to setting fire to two equipment cabinets on the railway. The Southern District Military Court found Nikolai Golubov, a resident of Rostov Oblast, guilty of setting fire to railway infrastructure facilities and laundering proceeds of crime. "The defendant was found guilty and sentenced to 11 years' imprisonment in a maximum security penal colony, with the first three years to be served in prison, and a fine of 20,000 rubles," the court's press service told Interfax. Golubov was convicted under paragraph "a" of Part 2 of Article 205 (terrorist act), Part 1 of Article 174.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (Legalization (laundering) of funds or other property acquired by a person as a result of the commission of a crime).

According to investigators, in May 2024, the defendant entered into correspondence with an unidentified person and agreed to pay to set fire to relay cabinets on a railway in the Rostov Region. He received information about the location of the relay cabinets, as well as a money transfer for the purchase of materials for the arson. On May 17, 2024, he set fire to the relay cabinets and filmed their burning process, after which he fled. On the same day, he received a reward in digital currency from an unidentified person, which he converted into 34,900 rubles.

Similar criminal cases often feature similar wording: allegedly, "unidentified individuals" force teenagers and young adults, including teenagers, to film arson and then send them to the "customer." This narrative in a large number of criminal cases suggests that investigators have found a simple way to prove crimes, as Roman Melnichenko, a candidate of legal sciences, previously noted.