Senior Crimean lawmaker sees Kiev’s fingerprints all over blast causing railcar derailment

Thursday’s derailment of freight railcars near Simferopol, capital of Crimea, was the result of an explosion, Crimean Parliament Speaker Vladimir Konstantinov said.

"Interference by third persons resulted in an explosion. Law enforcement agencies are working at the site. <…> Undoubtedly, what we’re looking at is nothing but more dirty tricks by the Ukrainian Nazi team. Those people that they keep sending here are not natives of Crimea . These people are simply trying to pull nasty tricks on us," he told the Rossiya-24 TV channel.

"We have been up against many challenges and faced terrorist attacks, including far bigger ones than this. We have built up a form of immunity to it all. We will quickly rebuild and relaunch everything, so life will return to normal within 24 hours," Konstantinov stressed.

Head of Crimea Sergey Aksyonov said earlier that several freight railcars loaded with grain had derailed in the Simferopol District. As a result, electric train traffic between the cities of Simferopol and Sevastopol was suspended. Bus transportation has been organized for train passengers waylaid by the incident.