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On April 26th, the Russian cruise missile hit a railway bridge over the Dniester River in the village of Zatoka in the Odessa region.
As a result of the strike, the railway track was damaged.
This is the only bridge that connects Odessa with the western part of the region and Romania. The destruction of the bridge will significantly complicate any transfer of weapons from Europe to Ukraine, as well as a possible advance of foreign troops in the region.
On April 25, 5 Ukrainian railway junctions were simultaneously hit by Russian missiles.
Russian high-precision missiles hit reportedly hit eight railway substations in Western Ukraine. As a result, railway facilities in the Krasnoe, Zdolbunov, Zhmerinka, Berdichev, Kovel, Korosten, Kazatin and Fastov were destroyed.
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The blows were inflicted on substations, without which electric trains cannot move. Railway communication in Western part of Ukraine was paralyzed. About 2 dozen passenger trains were delayed. By lunchtime the Ukrainian Railways services reported that they had managed to localize the problem. However, freight traffic was still stopped.
The vast majority of transportation in Ukraine is carried out by electric traction. As of 2020, there were more than 1,600 electric locomotives in Ukraine, and only 300 diesel locomotives.
Today, the bulk of military transportation of the Armed Forces of Ukraine is carried out by rail, which is much faster and cheaper than mobile transport, especially given the shortage of diesel fuel throughout the country.
Paralyzing the Ukrainian railway transport, the Russian military command achieves the main task to paralyze the strategic transfer of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, which is extremely important given the escalation in the Donbas and in the south of Ukraine.
If the strikes on electrical substations continue, 1,600 Ukrainian electric locomotives will not be able to move. They can only be replaced with the remaining 300 locomotives. At the same time, some part of the railway transport has already been taken out of service by Russian troops in the territories under their control, including in the Donbass, Kherson, Kharkiv and Chernihiv regions.
Moreover, Kiev’s Western partners also cannot help with the supply of European trains, since the track gauge in Ukraine differs from the European one.
If Russian missiles continue to strike at substations of Ukrainian railways, this will be able to significantly reduce the supply of weapons and manpower to the Armed Forces of Ukraine on the front line.
