Russia arrests two men who ran a website for train enthusiasts. Now they face up to 10 years in prison for allegedly compromising ‘critical infrastructure.’
Moscow’s Dorogomilovsky District Court has ordered the arrest of Denis Yeskov and Anatoly Nagornov, administrators of the train photo site RailGallery, the press service of Moscow’s courts reported on October 16.
Yeskov and Nagornov are charged under Russia’s criminal statute against unlawful interference with critical information infrastructure causing serious consequences, which carries a prison sentence of five to 10 years. According to investigators, Yeskov and Nagornov gained unlawful access to a trade secret belonging to an organization, copied information stored “in a critical infrastructure facility of the Russian Federation,” and posted it on their own site.
The specialized Telegram channel “1520. Vse o zh/d” (All About Railways) noticed on the evening of October 15 that RailGallery had stopped loading, and the site remains inaccessible. The court had already ordered the arrest of the site’s administrators on October 14, according to case files published on the court’s website.
Telegram channels also carried a statement from RailGallery’s editorial board confirming the detentions:
We are all in shock over what happened, and this news came as a complete surprise to us. I think each of us is now feeling confused and trying to make sense of what happened, understand what occurred, and what to expect going forward.
At the moment, the situation remains uncertain. It’s too early to say what will happen to the site going forward, whether its usual operation can be maintained, or who will take over its management. Right now we don’t have enough information to draw any conclusions or make assumptions about the future. For many, RailGallery is not just a resource, but part of daily life, a place to communicate, share experience, and bring together people with shared interests. So it’s only natural that what’s happening is causing concern.
RailGallery launched in 2022 after the popular railway photo site TrainPix shut down. the independent Russian news outlet Mediazona reported that TrainPix was created by Ukrainians, who announced its closure in response to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. TrainPix’s administrators deleted the site’s entire archive and urged people to support the Ukrainian army.
Yeskov spoke about RailGallery’s launch in August 2022, saying that within six months, the Russian community had restored half of TrainPix’s archive, or about 150,000 photographs. By the end of 2022, more than 3,200 users had registered on RailGallery and posted 194,000 photographs, including 161,500 restored images. According to “1520. Vse o zh/d,” the site became more than a photo gallery: an extensive database on the history and operation of railway equipment from various countries.
In 2023, Dossier Center published an investigation into an armored train that Vladimir Putin presumably rides. The investigation included a photo of a train belonging to the company Grand Service Express, taken from RailGallery’s site. Journalists found special communications antennas on the roofs of the train cars, and the train was pulled by three locomotives at once. Whether Putin actually rides the train pictured remains unknown.
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