Two bridges collapsed in Russian regions bordering Ukraine over the weekend of May 31 to June 1, 2025, throwing trains off the rails. At least seven people died and dozens were hurt, Russian officials said.
The seven deaths and 69 injuries all came from the first failure, on a highway bridge in the Bryansk region late Saturday. By the next day 47 people were in hospital, three of them children, one in serious condition. The locomotive driver was among those killed.
The second collapse struck the Kursk region in the early hours of Sunday, when a railway bridge gave way beneath a freight train. Alexander Khinshtein, the acting governor, said part of the train came down onto a road below the bridge, and that the locomotive caught fire before crews extinguished it. One driver suffered leg injuries and was taken to a local hospital along with his crew.
Bryansk Governor Alexander Bogomaz said the passenger train had been travelling from Klimovo to Moscow. Russian Railways first described the Bryansk collapse on Telegram as illegal interference in transport, then deleted the message. Roughly 180 personnel took part in the rescue, and both sites sit around 100 kilometres from the Ukrainian border.
The bottom line: officials have not tied the two collapses together, and Reuters said it could not independently confirm whether they were connected. What the record shows is a busy rail corridor near a war border, hit twice in a single night.
Sources
- Russian Investigative Committee: Bryansk & Kursk Rail Explosions from last night, Classified as Terrorist Attacks<!– –> – <!– –>Brighteon<!– –>.com
- Bridges collapse, derailing trains in 2 Russian regions bordering Ukraine, 7 dead | CBC News
