Ukraine’s security service blew up a railway connection linking Russia to China, in a clandestine strike carried out deep into enemy territory, with pro-Kremlin media reporting that investigators have opened a criminal case into a “terrorist attack.”
The SBU set off several explosions inside the Severomuysky tunnel of the Baikal-Amur highway in Buryatia, located some 6,000 kilometers east of Ukraine, a senior Ukrainian official with direct knowledge of the operation told POLITICO.
“This is the only serious railway connection between the Russian Federation and China. And currently, this route, which Russia uses, including for military supplies, is paralyzed,” the official said.
Four explosive devices went off while a cargo train was moving inside the tunnel. “Now the (Russian) Federal Security Service is working on the spot, the railway workers are unsuccessfully trying to minimize the consequences of the SBU special operation,” the Ukrainian official added.
Ukraine’s security service has not publicly confirmed the attack. Russia has also so far not confirmed the sabotage.
According to Wikipedia, there are 1.928 million ethnic Ukrainians currently living in Russia.
Wasn’t relocation a huge part of the Soviet system? As they took territory they would move people around so that there were more Russians in the territories, presumably less chance at ethnic uprisings?
Yes, but that was not the only reason.
The Soviets would send foreign intelligentsia and bourgeois (including slightly better off farmers) to die in Siberia in order to reduce the chances of uprising.
They would also mix populations in order to reduce national loyalties and would also encourage mixed ethnicity families to eventually absorb smaller nations into the Russian identity.
It’s not just Soviet system, Russian colonization of Siberia, North Caucasus etc was in large part done by Ukrainians. These people don’t usually identify as such, though, it’s a purely historical note.
And that’s false and seems to be taken from some strategy game.
I mean, the USSR did have dubious ethnic policies, somewhere aiming for ethnically homogeneous population, and somewhere as intermixed as possible. Like ethnically cleansing Ukrainians from Poland and settling them in Ukraine, and ethnically cleansing Poles from Ukraine and settling them in Poland.
The “moving around” thing wasn’t connected to this, it was a direct consequence of the “distribution” system where a graduate was legally required to work a few years in a place they were sent to (which could be on the other end of the union), and also people would move all over the union to study in better universities etc.
Most people wouldn’t return to their birthplace, even if they wouldn’t remain at the place they were sent to after graduation.
Which, well, makes sense for young people.