Russia attacked Ukrainian railway lines that were used to transport weapons to Ukraine from Europe and the US, both countries said.
Russian defense ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said that Russia used “high-precision long-range air and sea-based weapons” to destroy six traction electrical substations in five regions of Ukraine, the Russian state-owned TV network Zvezda reported Wednesday.
Konashenkov said Ukrainian troops in the eastern Donbas region were getting “weapons and ammunition manufactured by the United States and European countries” through those stations. He did not specify what condition the stations or railway lines were in after the attacks.
Ukraine also said that Russia targeted its railway lines. It said Russia had attacked more parts of the country than Konashenkov identified.
Ukraine’s armed forces said on Tuesday night that Russia had fired missiles “at facilities in Dnipropetrovsk, Kirovohrad, Lviv, Vinnytsia, Kyiv, Zakarpattia, Odesa and Donetsk oblasts,” the Financial Times reported.
Ukrainian officials said the strikes were aimed at stopping weapons arriving that were supplied to Ukraine from the West, the FT reported. The strikes managed to delay almost 50 trains for several hours, the FT said.
The reports come as US and European countries, which have collectively provided Ukraine with billions of dollars of security assistance since Russia’s invasion, pledged to step up weapon transfers in recent weeks.
Sinéad Baker is a News Reporter based in Business Insider’s London bureau.
