Russia is attacking rail passengers in Ukraine

Since the beginning of the Russian full-scale invasion in February 2022, the Ukrainian railway carrier Ukrzaliznytsia has become a symbol of the resilience of Ukrainian state and society. Over the last 4 years, Ukrainians have always known that despite the shelling of railway infrastructure, Ukrainian trains are little likely to be late than trains in neighbouring Poland or Germany further to the west.

This work is being continued in highly harsh conditions under systemic Russian attacks that aim to prevent the average functioning of railways in the country. According to Ukrzaliznytsia, since the beginning of the Russian full-scale invasion, its infrastructure and trains have been the mark of Russian attacks more than 4,000 times. These include attacks on railway stations, locomotive depots, railway repair shops, and individual trains, all cumulatively depleting the company’s ability to carry out their mission. Additionally, the creeping Russian business of Ukrainian territory has made railway connections impossible in many areas.

The most fresh Russian attacks include the attack on a train in the Dnipropetrovsk region on May 12th, which injured the train conductor; an attack on May 5th in respective regions of Ukraine; and attacks on April 22nd and 23rd that killed 2 people. The National Police of Ukraine reports that altogether, since the beginning of the Russian full-scale invasion, 165 people in Ukraine were killed as a consequence of direct attacks on railway assets and 920 were injured. These include railway personnel, passengers or another people who happened to be in proximity to railway tracks or trains at the minute of the attacks.

Having begun back in 2022, the Russian attacks on Ukraine’s railway strategy have been steadily intensifying since the autumn of 2025. Russia intensified the policy of targeting railway infrastructure, aiming at targets close to the western borders of Ukraine. In December 2025, the Russians carried out attacks by sending drones through Belarusian territory towards a train close Kovel, a city any 60 kilometres distant from the Ukrainian-Polish border. On January 27th 2026, six passengers were killed as a consequence of an attack by Geran drones on the Chop-Kharkiv-Barvinkove passenger train while it was moving in the Kharkiv region. On March 4th, a Russian drone attacked an empty passenger train in Mykolaiv, while on March 8th a Lancet drone attacked a train approaching Sumy. On March 14th, a Russian drone attacked a regional commuter train in the Sumy region, hitting the train’s locomotive. Finally, on March 24th, a drone attacked a local train in the Kharkiv region. The trains and train stations in the Kherson region had been targets of akin attacks before. But it is the regions bordering Russia that are presently suffering the most from these drone attacks.

According to the Ukrzaliznytsia president Oleksandr Pertsovsky, there have been 472 attacks on Ukrzaliznytsia trains and buildings between January and March of 2026, damaging 40 passenger and 145 freight cars and 12 station buildings. The Russians are besides targeting the locomotives. But Ukrzaliznytsia does not specify the number.

For Ukrainians, the harm done to the railways is reflected in a simplification of passenger connections. Due to the systemic attacks on railway infrastructure and trains, Ukrzaliznytsia has halted services for cities in the Donetsk region since November 2025. At the same time, respective local commuter trains in the Sumy and Kharkiv regions bordering Russia were removed from the schedule. Ukrzaliznytsia has besides stopped selling tickets for the train connecting Sumy and Kharkiv without specifying erstwhile this way might return. Given that both cities are administrative centres of regions straight bordering Russia and positioned about 25 kilometres from the current frontlines, the train way has been considered besides risky to run. Due to the accumulated harm to the power supply networks caused by Russian air strikes, as of March 18th, Ukrzaliznytsia has stopped direct train services on routes from Kyiv to Kharkiv. The trains presently end their journey in Poltava (a city about 140 kilometres distant from Kharkiv). Passengers then transfer to another train that is then pulled towards Kharkiv by a diesel locomotive.

The company has besides been forced to respond to the threat by introducing a mandatory emergency evacuation procedure of passengers implemented since March 2026. The company orders evacuations for the trains based on information provided by the Ukrainian Air Force.

I learned from my own experience what specified an evacuation looks like just days after the fresh procedure was introduced, erstwhile an overnight train from Kharkiv to Kyiv was forced to halt at around 2 in the morning in the fields in Poltava region. The Russians had simultaneously launched Shahed and Geran drones together with ballistic and cruise missiles targeting respective regions of Ukraine. The Poltava region, through which the train was passing erstwhile it was stopped, was among the ones under attack. At the command of the conductor, sleepy passengers got out of the car, many of them holding Ukrzaliznytsia blankets in their hands. The temperature in Kharkiv during the day exceeded 15 degrees, and most passengers on the train were dressed rather lightly, but at night the temperature dropped below zero. In the dim train lights, 1 could see frost glistening on last year’s dry grass.

Within a fewer minutes it became clear that the evacuation of the train was reasonable. Tracer bullet flashes were visible in the sky and explosions heard in the distance. The train conductor shouted into a loudspeaker for the passengers to decision distant from the cars and hide in the forest strip close the track. The passengers had been waiting for the end of the attack for more than an hr and a half, mostly in silence. At any point a kid about five-years-old cried out in the darkness: “Mom, I am tired, I will sleep right here on the street.” The young parent sat down on the ground, hugging the child, trying to calm it down. Fortunately, the alarm was over very shortly after that, and the passengers were able to return to the cars.

On the way to Kyiv, the train partially reduced the hold and arrived at the final station 1 hr late. In the morning, I learned from regional authorities in Poltava that the train was waiting for a Geran drone attack on Poltava to end. This assault sadly resulted in the death of 2 people.

A fewer hours after the train arrived in Kyiv, the Ukrzaliznytsia president Oleksandr Pertsovsky held a press conference to explain the recently introduced safety and evacuation procedures for passenger trains. According to Pertsovsky, the request for the fresh rigorous rules was caused by the aggravating circumstances. As Pertsovsky explains, in the event of an attack, a train car can become a death trap for passengers, and therefore, it is better to stay outside of it.

Emergency evacuations of passengers are not the only safety measurement being worked on at Ukrzaliznytsia. The Advisor to the Minister of Defence of Ukraine Serhiy Bezkrestnov reported that experts are besides working on method solutions – placing electronic warfare equipment on train locomotives.

With the fresh experience on the train from Kharkiv to Kyiv inactive fresh in my memory, I dress and pack in a way that prepares me for a abrupt night-time evacuation on my voyage to Sumy. The train travelled most of the way from Kyiv to Sumy without problems, halting shortly in the mediate of the night without evacuating its passengers. However, in the morning the train abruptly stopped and stood inactive for more than half an hr a twelve kilometres from Sumy. yet the carriage conductor announced the evacuation. A fewer minutes prior, the Ukrainian Air Force reported on its WhatsApp channel that drones were moving towards 1 of the towns in the region with a trajectory that would endanger the train.

Passengers standing next to the carriage were looking for the best places to hide in case the drones did attack the train. 1 of the passengers exclaimed that the drones would fly past the train. “Their sound is the scariest thing of all,” she said. We hear a single detonation in the distance that seems to have been a loitering munition hitting a mark any twelve kilometres away, but 20 minutes after the evacuation, the chief train conductor announces that the passengers may now return to their seats. shortly the train continues, but at a alternatively slow pace as it closes in on Sumy, while an air raid siren sounds in the city. The train arrives at Sumy station a fewer minutes after it ends. The train is 2 hours behind the scheduled arrival time. This is not bad at all, considering that on any days during that week, trains between Sumy and Kyiv were up to six hours late.

As the train approaches the platform at Sumy station, it passes 1 of the destroyed railway buildings. It was hit in 1 of the erstwhile Russian attacks. The passengers are already waiting for the train. Just a fewer minutes after arriving in Sumy, it will travel in the other direction. The trains going to Sumy and another regions close to the border spend the least possible amount of time erstwhile in train stations there.

According to transport experts, Russian attacks on Ukrzaliznytsia will continue. They have respective goals. Olexandr Pertsovskyi believes they aim to complicate the lives of civilians in frontline regions and communities. At the same time, the erstwhile Deputy Minister of Transport of Ukraine Vasyl Shevchenko notes that this is done to make production in the industrialized regions of Donetsk and Zaporizhia as hard as possible. Another aim is to slow the supplies for the military. There is simply a very active network of private bus carriers in Ukraine, but Ukrzaliznytsia remains a crucial means of transport. In 2025, the company sold 28 million tickets for long-distance train trips. Thanks to state subsidies for passenger tickets, the railways have a social function providing the most affordable trips for the residents of Ukraine. That means the simplification of services in a number of regions of the country hits the most susceptible people the hardest.

The simplification in the number of railway connections in Ukraine is now topped by an increase in fuel prices due to the war in Iran. For residents of specified places as Sumy, this means a crucial increase in travel prices. A ticket for a private bus from Sumy to Kyiv now costs 850 hryvnia (16,50 euros), while the cheapest ticket on the same way by train can be bought for 200 hryvnia (3,90 euros). any passengers avoid travelling by bus for safety reasons. Anna Olshanska, the communications manager for the local Sumy media outlet Cukr, says she now avoids the buses as they are besides targeted by the drones. However, unlike the railways they do not have access to the informing strategy of the air force.

“It feels like we’re being cut off from the remainder of the country,” says Viktoriya, a Sumy civic activist who travels around Ukraine frequently. She returned to Sumy from a business journey the day I arrived in the city and was besides forced to evacuate from the train. To get home, she took a train to Kharkiv and then a bus to Sumy.

Ukrzaliznytsia is making an effort to keep the existing services and is going to equip its locomotive with radio jamming technologies. respective weeks after its introduction, the company besides announced a change to the evacuation procedures. In mid-April the company announced that passengers would only be evacuated from trains if there is an air raid threat within 50 kilometres of the train’s location. But the simplification of many routes and the additional obstacles for passengers will not be reversed until the end of the war.

On June 11th, a Russian drone damaged a train at the Sumy train station. It was a part of a bigger drone attack on the city.

Kateryna Pryshchepa is simply a Ukrainian writer and a contributing editor with New east Europe.

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