Ukraine’s railway system came under a large-scale Russian attack on Wednesday, May 13, with strikes hitting infrastructure across multiple regions and causing casualties among railway workers, officials said.
Vice Prime Minister for Reconstruction and Minister for Communities and Territories Development Oleksii Kuleba said Ukrainian communities were again targeted by “mass attacks” aimed at civilian infrastructure, housing, energy facilities and logistics.
“The enemy is deliberately striking civilian infrastructure, residential areas, energy and logistics,” Kuleba wrote on Telegram, adding that one of the main targets was the railway system, which suffered 23 strikes across western, northern and central Ukraine.
Ukrainian Railways (Ukrzaliznytsia) confirmed 23 hits on railway infrastructure, including damage to three locomotives, seven suburban passenger carriages, eight freight wagons, five traction substations, five depots and two bridges. Despite the scale of the damage, rail traffic across the country continued to operate.
“At the workplace: everyone was evacuated to shelters in time; one employee was injured (a minor injury while moving to shelter, a bruise). Outside the workplace: in Zdolbuniv, among civilians killed, there are two railway workers who were not on duty at the time of the attack on the city, and one more was injured,” Lytvyn added.
Officials said the attacks also targeted energy infrastructure, bridges, and passenger and freight depots across the Zakarpattia, Lviv, Zhytomyr, Rivne, Volyn, Kharkiv and Dnipropetrovsk regions.
