Safety first

The railway is a source of increased danger. Every day, thousands of passengers use the rolling stock of Belarusian Railways, and hundreds of wagons transport goods.

At the same time, there has been an increase in cases of citizens being incited to commit unlawful acts on railway transport facilities, including by short-circuiting track circuits. When calling for unlawful acts, it is deliberately concealed that they can lead to: injury and death of people, serious damage to the environment, ecological disasters, the consequences of which will affect the health of the population, including future generations.

We remind you! Interference by unauthorized persons in the operation of railway automation by short-circuiting the track circuit using foreign objects can lead to emergency braking of rolling stock, which can be considered as intentional blocking of transport communications.

For the specified actions, administrative responsibility is provided in the form of a fine of up to fifty basic units, as well as, depending on the consequences, criminal liability.

According to Art. 309 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Belarus, intentional destruction, damage, or otherwise rendering unusable means of railway, water, air, road, main pipeline transport, ways of communication, structures on them, means of signaling or communication, or other transport equipment, if these actions could cause death, derailment, accident, or other serious consequences, are punishable by a fine, or arrest, or restriction of liberty, or imprisonment for up to three years. If the actions, through negligence, caused grievous bodily harm or less grievous bodily harm, or damage on a particularly large scale, imprisonment for up to four years may be imposed.

Actions that negligently cause the death of a person are punishable by imprisonment for a term of three to ten years.

Assistant to the Vitebsk Transport Prosecutor, Class 1 Lawyer S.V. Sazonova