Since mid-summer, Russia has ramped up its strikes on Ukraine's railway infrastructure, launching attacks with an average of six to seven «Shaheds» almost every night. This was reported by Oleksandr Pertzovskyi, the head of the board of JSC «Ukrzaliznytsia», in an interview with Reuters.
«The primary aim of the Russians is to instill panic among passengers, and their secondary goal is to inflict damage on the economy as a whole,» Pertzovskyi stated.
According to him, the attacks are not specifically targeting military cargo. «Essentially, these are strikes on civilian infrastructure,» he added.
Pertzovskyi pointed out that the attacks, which have affected dozens of substations, are linked to a significant increase in the number of long-range drones produced by the Russian military-industrial complex.
«Previously, they simply did not have enough resources to deploy a combat drone like the «Shahed» against a locomotive. Now they can afford to use «Shaheds» for strikes against individual locomotives rather than just strategic targets,» he said.
The head of Ukrzaliznytsia noted that since mid-summer, Russia has attacked electrical substations and other railway infrastructure with an average of six to seven «Shaheds» nearly every night.
«They… operate systematically, taking out one substation after another or key railway nodes to halt passenger trains,» Pertzovskyi said, citing recent attacks on the Lozova, Synelnykove, and Koziatyn stations.
However, despite the systematic attacks, the Ukrainian railway is currently managing to cope with the load, and the transit of military cargo has not suffered.
«This is a marathon… They (the Russians) hit us, we recover. They hit us, we recover,» he described the situation.
According to estimates from the World Bank, approximately 30% of Ukraine's railway system is in a state of «damage-recovery».
In a comment to the agency, Pertzovskyi previously stated that the Russians are trying to destroy key junction stations. Specifically, on September 17, the railway infrastructure was attacked by the Russian army, causing delays for several trains.
