Russia increasingly targeting trains as attacks on Ukraine’s rail network intensify | Ukraine

Ukraine has recorded a threefold increase in the number of attacks on its railway system since July, according to a senior minister; because Moscow is trying to destroy one of Kiev’s key logistics systems.

Deputy prime minister responsible for infrastructure Oleksii Kuleba said attacks on the network since the beginning of 2025 had caused a total of $1 billion (£760 million) in damage.

“If you compare just the last three months, we see that attacks have tripled,” Kuleba said. “There have been 800 attacks on rail infrastructure since the beginning of the year and more than 3,000 rail facilities have been damaged. What we are seeing in these increasing attacks is that they are going after trains, especially trying to kill drivers.”

Railways are of critical importance in a large country like Ukraine. The rail network carries more than 63 percent of the country’s freight, including grain shipments, and 37 percent of passenger traffic, according to the state statistics service. Military aid from foreign countries often arrives by train.

No civilian airports have been operational since Russia’s full-scale invasion, so most people travel in and out of the country by train, including visiting world leaders.

“It’s not just about quantity [of attacks]”This is also the approach of enemy forces,” said Oleksandr Pertsovskyi, head of Ukrainian state railway Ukrzaliznytsia. “Now they are targeting individual locomotives because they have very sensitive Shahed unmanned aerial vehicles.”

Efforts to better protect the network have been enacted, including equipping trains with electronic systems against drone attacks and creating special air defense teams from among railway staff.

Earlier this year the main building at Lozova station in the Kharkiv region was heavily damaged in a drone attack. Other attacks damaged the rails. Despite the attacks, passengers are still lining up to buy tickets and board trains to destinations across the country.

“It was night and everyone was sleeping,” station chief Tetyana Tkachenko said of a recent attack. “I woke up from the big explosion because I lived very close to the station. It happened at 02.44 at night. There were five trains at the station. The first, a small suburban train, was due to depart two hours later.

“It was clear they were targeting the station. They wanted to do it. And they did it.”

Tkachenko gave a tour of the station and noted a damaged platform and the main waiting room is currently out of use. The facade of the main building was scorched and collapsed in places. A pile of twisted metal sits on the disused platform.

Tkachenko explained why the station was targeted. “Lozova is at a major crossroads,” he said. “You can go in four directions: to Dnipro, Sloviansk, Poltava and Kharkiv.”

The lines are used for passenger traffic, freight and military support; this included the evacuation of wounded soldiers from fighting on the eastern front.

“The threat is really great these days,” Tkachenko said. “The Russians directly hit places where people gather, they want to damage rails and locomotives. They want to destroy high voltage lines.”

Oleksandr Podvarchansky, responsible for the runway in the Lozova region, explained what happened when the air raid sirens went off. “The main mission is to protect people’s lives,” he said. “At every weather alert we have to stop and use a bomb shelter. If there’s a train on the tracks, we move it to the nearest station so people can be evacuated.”

Kuleba said Russia has three goals: to destroy Ukraine’s southern logistics to prevent goods from being transported to ports; Disrupting railway traffic near the front line in regions such as Chernihiv and Sumy; and “destroy everything” in Donbas, the industrial center in eastern Ukraine that includes the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.

The network has also been the target of bomb threat hoaxes, including a recent international service. Few officials doubt that Russia is responsible.

Although rails can be repaired quickly (usually within a day, according to Podvarchansky), damage to rolling stock is a more concerning issue.

Trains are particularly vulnerable to drones because they are relatively slow and follow predictable routes, Ukrainian military and drone expert Serhii Beskrestnov said in a recent interview with The Associated Press.

As the range of Russian drones increases and the technology becomes more sophisticated, more railways are coming into range. “If the Russians continue to attack diesel and electric locomotives, very soon there will come a time when the rails will be intact, but we will have nothing left to work on,” Beskrestnov said.