Two deadly bridge collapses in Russia near Ukraine blamed on deliberate explosions

Two bridges collapsed in separate Russian regions bordering Ukraine on Saturday night, killing seven people and injuring dozens, with Russian officials alleging the bridges had been deliberately blown up.

The incidents occurred amid uncertainty over whether Kyiv diplomats will participate in a new round of peace talks proposed by Moscow on Monday in Istanbul, and amid growing frustration in Washington over the impasse between Russia and Ukraine.

The first bridge collapsed late Saturday in the Bryansk region, crashing onto railway tracks and derailing an approaching train, Bryansk Governor Alexander Bogomaz said Sunday morning.

“Unfortunately, there are seven fatalities,” he posted on Telegram, later saying that 47 people had been hospitalized.

Hours later, in Russia’s Kursk region, a railway bridge above a road collapsed while a freight train was crossing it, according to the region’s acting governor Alexander Khinshtein.

“One of the train drivers has injured his legs — the entire team was taken to the hospital,” he said on Telegram, adding that the locomotive had originally caught fire before it was extinguished by emergency services.

The Kremlin said Sunday that Russian President Vladimir Putin had been informed about the situation in the Kursk and Bryansk regions.

Russia’s Investigative Committee linked the incidents and said explicitly that both bridges were “blown up.”

Moscow Railway initially posted that the collapse in Bryansk was caused by “illegal interference” but later deleted the message.

Mikhail Razvozhayev, governor of Russia’s Sevastopol region, called the explosion in Bryansk an “inhuman act of terror against civilians.”

Vyacheslav Gladkov, governor of Russia’s Belgorod region, sent his condolences to the families of the dead and wounded, saying “the enemy is capable of vile terror against peaceful people.”

Neither governor directly attributed the attack to Ukraine.

NBC could not independently verify either report. There was no immediate comment from Ukraine.

Also on Sunday, Ukraine’s HUR military intelligence agency said that an explosion had derailed a Russian military train hauling cargo and fuel trucks near the settlement of Yakymivka, in a Russian-controlled part of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region.

The agency did not claim responsibility or attribute the explosion to anyone, though Ukraine has in the past claimed a series of attacks deep into Russia.

Moscow says it is ready for peace talks while the fighting goes on and wants to discuss what it calls the war’s “root causes,” including its demands that Ukraine cede more territory and be disarmed and barred from military alliances with the West.

Hundreds of thousands of soldiers on both sides are believed to have been wounded or killed in Europe’s deadliest war since World War II, although neither side publishes accurate casualty figures. Tens of thousands of Ukrainian civilians have also died as Russian forces have besieged and bombarded Ukrainian cities.