Russia targets rail system in bid to slow flow of Western arms
Russia’s military has launched a string of air strikes on Ukraine’s railway network, which has been vital for moving Western arms to the front, evacuating refugees and exporting crops. A Russian official said the aim was to disrupt the delivery of Western weapons. Here is a look at the attacks and their significance to the war.
Why are railways so important for Ukraine?
The largely flat country has a vast railway network, which has proved invaluable from a military viewpoint for supplying key Western arms shipments – and has also helped in the exodus of refugees from Russian air assaults and land advances.
Western weaponry pouring into Ukraine helped its forces blunt Russia’s initial offensive. It also seems certain to play a central role in the battle for the Donbas in the east, which Moscow now says is its focus following its failure to take the capital, Kyiv.
The US and other Western allies have increased weapons shipments at the urging of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu has warned that Moscow would see any Western transport carrying weapons into Ukraine as a legitimate target. The rail attacks were meant to disrupt the delivery of such weapons, Russian Defence Ministry spokesman Major General Igor Konashenkov said on Wednesday.
What were the latest targets?
Russian forces used sea and air-launched precision guided missiles to destroy power facilities at five railway stations across Ukraine this week. Some attacks were concentrated in and around the western city of Lviv, close to the border with Poland, that has been a gateway for the Nato-supplied weapons.
Lviv’s mayor said the strikes damaged three power substations, knocking out electricity in parts of the city that had seen only sporadic attacks during the war and had become a haven for civilians fleeing the fighting.
Has the railway system been struck before?
A Russian missile hit a crowded railway station in eastern Ukraine last month, killing at least 52 people and wounding dozens more.
Thousands of civilians, mostly women and children fleeing the Donbas region, had gathered at the station in the town of Kramatorsk on April 8 when a missile hit. Zelensky accused Russia’s military of deliberately attacking the station. Russia blamed Ukraine, saying its own forces do not use the kind of missile that hit the station.
In late April, Russian targeted several railway junctions in the west of the country to disrupt weapons deliveries.
What is Russia’s plan?
Russia seems to have largely spared Ukraine’s rail system at the outset of the invasion because it had planned to use it to move its own troops and arms across the country, which it had hoped to overrun quickly, Western military analysts say.
“Now that they know they won’t be able to use it, they are striking the rail system that is likely carrying armour and reinforcements to the Ukrainians,” said retired French General Dominique Trinquand.
While the Russians have been conducting precision attacks on the rail network and firing expensive missiles into its power supply lines in the past week, their goal still appears to be damaging rather than destroying the network.
“It won’t stop the Ukrainians, but it will disrupt them,” said Frank Ledwidge, a former British military intelligence officer. He said the Russians also aimed to undermine Ukraine’s morale. “It’s like saying: ‘Nowhere is safe’. ‘Your army can’t protect you’. ‘We reign over your country at will’.”
What does the United States say?
A senior US defence official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the Pentagon’s assessment, said that while the Russians had tried to hit critical infrastructure around Lviv, specifically targeting railways, there had been “no appreciable impact” on Ukraine’s effort to resupply its forces.
The official said it was not clear that the Russian strikes had been very accurate, and they also had not impeded efforts to get weapons into Ukraine.