Iron will of people tested by railways onslaught
Alone cashier yesterday sat in the ticket hall of Mykolaiv-Dnistrovskyi railway station.
Ivanna Bereza, 47, is used to the odd slow day at the small, local stop 40 miles south of the historic city of Lviv.
But this time the lack of customers carried an air of menace: on Wednesday night a railway tunnel on the network was the target of a Russian missile attack and it weighed on Ms Bereza’s mind.
She has sold tickets for the national railway service for 16 years, and her job has recently put her on the invisible front line of the battle to sustain Ukraine’s economy in the face of Russian aggression and keep up the flow of arms from the West.
“Anything is possible, but we try not to think about it. We just keep coming in to do our shifts. What else can you do?” she said.
Russia’s strike on the Beskidy tunnel in the Carpathian mountains, a key link with western Europe, was the latest escalation in what the chief executive of Ukraine’s state-owned railway network has called a “systematic” attempt to destroy it. Yesterday, some passenger trains were cancelled while the damage was assessed but the tunnel itself had remained intact.
Maksym Kozytskyy, Lviv region’s governor, told local media that five people had been injured when four “enemy missiles” struck the Stryi and Sambir districts in the Lviv region of western Ukraine. But most details of the attack remain shrouded in secrecy.
“Any information or details apart from what was published is restricted due to the martial law and the overall situation in the country,” said a spokesman for Lviv region’s railways.
Official sources indicated those injured by the missiles were railway workers. One unconfirmed report suggested that Verkhnie Synovydne, some 40 miles from Mykolaiv-Dnistrovskyi, may have been hit.
Boris Johnson, who travelled by train into Kyiv to meet Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s president, hailed the railway workers as “iron people” who were keeping the country going.
The vast railway network has proved invaluable for moving Western arms shipments and helping refugees to flee Russian air assaults and land advances.
Wednesday’s attack triggered a nationwide air raid alert at around 9.30pm. It was the latest in a series of missile barrages that Russia appears to be launching to damage railway infrastructure and other critical assets such as fuel depots, bridges and storage facilities, as it tries to disrupt Ukraine’s war effort and cripple its economy. In April, more than 50 Ukrainian civilians were killed in a strike on Kramatorsk train station.
Ukrainian economists say that the country has suffered up to $600billion of economic losses because of the invasion – including $92billion of damage to factories, medical facilities, schools, bridges, churches, vehicles and warehouses.
Meanwhile, multiple strikes have hit western Ukraine with the aim of slowing down the accelerating delivery of weapons from Nato allies to the eastern front.
Britain will soon send sophisticated medium-range rockets, joining the US and Germany to equip Kyiv with advanced weapons to shoot down aircraft and knock out artillery as Russia pounds the Donbas region.
Behind the high-profile weaponry pledges lies a game of cat and mouse as Kyiv sends it where its most needed.
In recent weeks Russia has used precision guided missiles to destroy power facilities at railway stations across Ukraine. Several attacks targeted the Lviv area, close to the border with Poland, that has been a gateway for Nato-supplied weapons.
Russia has made no secret of its intention to target railways. Sergey Shoigu, the Russian defence minister, has accused the West of “stuffing Ukraine with weapons”, warning that Western transport carrying them would be a legitimate target.
Analysts suggest Russia is striking the railways as it is focused on taking territory in the east and southeast of the country, so commandeering rail transport for its own use has become less important.
“First, the Russians are trying to scare people. Second, they try to cut the lines of supply that come from Europe and the West and third they want to cause as much destruction as possible,” said Andriyy Sadovyy, mayor of Lviv. But, he added, Moscow had not reckoned with Ukraine’s resilience.
“The Russians do not understand. Our army is not just 4-500,000 soldiers. Our army is the whole population of 44million and they can’t have 44million rockets to kill everyone.”