Russia’s tactic of the moment: Moscow targets Ukraine’s rail infrastructure to cripple military aid delivery

Russia has stepped up its attacks on Ukraine’s rail infrastructure to “paralyze” military supplies, particularly Western equipment, ahead of a new offensive, a senior Ukrainian security official told AFP on Friday.

Rail infrastructure is particularly vital in Ukraine, both for passenger and commercial transport and for the military, as since the start of the Russian invasion in February 2022, all air traffic there has been paralyzed.

“These are classic measures before an offensive,” said a high-ranking source in the Ukrainian security system, interviewed by AFP, on condition of anonymity.

The aim “is to paralyze the deliveries, the transport of military goods”, added the quoted source.

The rail network has been regularly targeted by Russian bombing over the past two years.

The attacks have particularly targeted railway stations such as the one in Kramatorsk in the east, where dozens of people, mostly civilians trying to flee the fighting, were killed in April 2022.

But recent weeks have seen an increase in bombings targeting rail infrastructure.

The Russians aim to destroy Western weapons supplied to Kiev

On Thursday alone, the Russians attacked railway infrastructure in three Ukrainian regions.

In the Donetsk region, divided by the front line, three employees of the railway company, Ukrzaliznîtia, were killed in an attack on a railway infrastructure.

On the same day, ten civilians were injured in a rocket attack against Balaklia railway station in Kharkiv region, and infrastructure was damaged in Smila (Cherkasî region, center).

A massive attack against railway infrastructure that took place in Dnipro and the region (centre-east) killed one railway employee and injured seven others on 19 April. A week earlier, Sumî (North) station was lightly hit.

The Russian military, for its part, claimed on Friday that it hit a “train with Western weapons and military equipment” in the city of Udaşnoe in the Donetsk region, as well as military “troops and equipment” in Balaklia.

“A train carrying weapons and Western military equipment was hit near the town of Udasnoe,” the Russian Defense Ministry said, without giving further details about the outcome of the attack.

Although he did not give specifics, these claims appear to correspond to the attacks mentioned the day before by the Ukrainian authorities.

Since March, Russia has stepped up attacks targeting Ukrainian infrastructure, particularly the electricity grid and, more recently, the rail network.

According to Kiev, Moscow is preparing a new major offensive to try to expand the area under Russian control. Russia notably destroyed a multitude of energy targets, leading to major blackouts, particularly in the northeast.

Three “very difficult” months

The attacks on the railways also come as the United States has resumed military aid deliveries to Ukraine after months of paralysis due to internal political rivalries.

Ukrzaliznîtia’s head of passenger transport, Oleksandr Pertsovskî, told AFP on Thursday that he had noticed “an increase in attacks on railway infrastructure”.

“We see that the strikes target rail logistics and mainly affect civilian places,” he said. “They attack indiscriminately in railway stations, it’s a very primitive way of doing things.”

Weakened by a failed counter-offensive in the summer of 2023 and a freeze on US military aid, Ukrainian forces, short on men and ammunition, are under pressure across much of the front, particularly in the east.

And the situation is expected to worsen in the middle of May and the beginning of June, which will be a “difficult period”, the head of the Ukrainian military secret services Kirilo Budanov warned on Monday.

Western officials have the same forecast, who believe that the next three months will be “very difficult” for Kiev’s ground forces.

The commander of Ukraine’s National Guard warned on Tuesday that Russian troops will strike in unexpected parts of the front when they launch their summer offensive in Ukraine and may try to advance on the northeastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv.

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