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.
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May 4, 2022 at 1:56 pm
The numerous fires across Russia at militarily-significant sites shows how vulnerable Russia is to a sabotage campaign, similar to what the IRA did against Britain. Ukraine and Russia are right next door sharing a border that runs over a thousand kilometres. Ukraine saboteurs – who speak and look like Russians – are able to cross the border freely, and target key Russian infrastructure.
It is very cost-effective to use sabotage. No need for millions of dollars for missiles. Just hacking into the control box of railway stations puts rail infrastructure out of use. And if many of those control boxes are destroyed across Russia, just simple things like that can totally disrupt a country.
Out of a population of 44 million, imagine several hundreds thousands Ukrainian saboteurs disrupting Russia. Sure, Russia can do the same to Ukraine – but the end result will be that both nations mutually destroy each other’s infrastructure.
Mark these words: it’s not just Ukraine’s infrastructure that will be harmed. Russia is extremely vulnerable to mass sabotage. Imagine the carnage that saboteurs can do to Russia over a 10 year period of constant secret attacks on infrastructure, non-stop.
Russia can send missiles worth millions of dollars to destroy a Ukrainian train station, while a Ukrainian saboteur can destroy the control box of a Russian train station. It might look as if there was no outward damage to the Russian train station – but little hidden attacks like this can cripple a country’s infrastructure.
Russia is such a vast country. Imagine teams of Ukrainian saboteurs, blowing up rail lines across the country. Little acts of destruction can cripple a giant nation. David and Goliath – the giant was killed with a small stone aimed at his head.