Russian drone attacks disrupt Ukraine rail network as evacuations rise

Russian drone attacks are increasingly disrupting Ukraine's passenger rail network, forcing evacuations, delaying journeys and adding pressure to a transport system that has remained central to the country's wartime resilience. The state-owned operator says more than half of all strikes on locomotives since Russia's full-scale invasion began in 2022 have taken place this year. The latest reporting points to a widening pattern of attacks on rail infrastructure and other transport links, including recent strikes on bridges in Kyiv.

Sponsored

The operator said 5,831 trains were evacuated in September alone because of Russian drone attacks, an average of 205 trains a day. One passenger, Yuliia Ponomarenko, described being stopped near the Ukraine-Poland frontier last month after a drone hit a locomotive nearby. She said border guards shouted for passengers to run from the carriages because of shelling, and that the train was held for six hours while the fire was extinguished and the line cleared.

She added that a special train carrying former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and other European dignitaries had passed through minutes earlier. Other passengers have described similar scenes of disruption and fear. Seventeen-year-old Anastasiia Ryvbalchenko said she and fellow travellers were forced off a train at 4am on 16 September during a journey from Odesa to Kirovohrad.

She said that after waiting in the dark for about an hour and a half, a drone struck nearby and people ran into the woods after a loud explosion. The report says passengers are routinely evacuated and left waiting on the trackside until the danger has passed, underlining how often the alerts are now interrupting civilian travel. The rail network has been one of the most important pieces of civilian infrastructure in Ukraine since the start of the war in 2022.

Sponsored

It has carried passengers, freight and evacuation traffic while much of the country has faced repeated missile and drone strikes. The latest attacks matter because they target a system that helps keep cities connected, supports the movement of people and goods, and provides an alternative when roads or air travel are disrupted. They also show how the conflict is increasingly affecting daily life far from the front line.

The strikes on trains and locomotives appear to form part of a broader campaign against infrastructure. The report says two bridges in Kyiv were attacked in the past few days, and passengers on a metro train were caught up in one of the strikes. That suggests the pressure is not limited to one mode of transport but is extending across rail, bridge and urban transit networks.

For Ukraine, the cumulative effect is not only operational disruption but also the need to divert resources to repairs, safety checks and emergency response. The timing is significant because the attacks are intensifying as the war enters another phase of long-range strikes. The report says Russian drones began attacking Ukrainian passenger trains at the end of last year, but the scale has grown sharply this year.

More than half of all strikes on locomotives since the full-scale invasion have occurred in 2026, according to the operator, indicating a marked escalation in the targeting of rail assets. That makes the rail system a more exposed part of Ukraine's wartime logistics and civilian mobility. What remains unclear is the full extent of the damage to the rail network and whether the recent strikes caused injuries or deaths in the incidents described.

Sponsored

It is also not clear which specific targets were intended in every case, including the drone strike near the train carrying passengers from Odesa to Kirovohrad. The next developments to watch are whether evacuations continue at the current pace, whether repairs can keep services running, and whether the attacks spread further to other transport routes.

#Ukraine #railnetwork #droneattacks #evacuations #transportdisruption