Fear and disruption for Ukraine's rail passengers as Russia escalates drone attacks

ByPaul Adams

diplomatic correspondent, Reporting fromin Kyiv

Ukraine's railways person kept the state moving since Russia's full-scale penetration successful 2022. But attacks are intensifying, with much than fractional of each strikes connected locomotives since past occurring this twelvemonth alone, according to the state-owned operator.

Yuliia Ponomarenko, 27, a selling specializer from Kharkiv, recovered her travel to Warsaw past period abruptly interrupted conscionable abbreviated of the Ukraine-Poland frontier.

"The borderline guards started moving astir and shouting "Run! Get retired of the carriages! There's shelling!"

A Russian drone had conscionable deed a locomotive adjacent the aforesaid border, and a peculiar bid carrying erstwhile British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and different European dignitaries, had passed done minutes before.

Passengers connected Yuliia's bid were kept waiting for six hours portion the occurrence up up was enactment retired and the enactment cleared, she says: "We were truly fortunate that we were delayed a small and it wasn't our train."

She is among an expanding fig of Ukrainian passengers facing disruption and agelong delays, arsenic aerial raid alerts trigger exigency evacuations acold from the battlegrounds of the east.

In September alone, 5,831 trains had to beryllium evacuated owed to Russian drone attacks, authorities owned railway relation Ukrzaliznytsia told AFP quality bureau connected Monday. This meant connected mean each day, 205 trains were stopped.

It appears to beryllium portion of a wider battle connected Ukraine's infrastructure, with two bridges attacked successful Kyiv successful the past fewer days and passengers of a metro bid caught up successful 1 of the strikes.

Seventeen-year-old Anastasiia Ryvbalchenko has besides experienced a constrictive escape.

She and her chap passengers were forced to permission their bid astatine 4am, towards the extremity of a agelong of a travel from Odesa to Kirovohrad connected 16 September.

"On my mode to Odesa, determination had been a batch of evacuations and present connected my mode backmost it was happening again," she says. "I was already reasoning that if determination was different evacuation, I conscionable couldn't instrumentality it immoderate more."

An hr and a fractional later, arsenic passengers waited successful the dark, a drone struck nearby.

"There was an highly large detonation and everyone started moving into the woods," she said.

It is not wide what the people was, and successful this lawsuit the bid was not damaged, but with further explosions lighting up the nighttime sky, Anastasiia decided not to linger, continuing her travel connected ft earlier being picked up by her parents.

"I'm not going to question by bid anymore," she says.

Anastassia's travel was much melodramatic than most, but delays – immoderate brief, others that past for hours – are present commonplace.

Since Russian drones archetypal started attacking moving rider trains towards the extremity of 2025, the regular for passengers has go progressively familiar: permission the train, scroll Telegram channels for updates connected drone and rocket launches, nonstop messages to pass friends and household that the bid is delayed.

For a railway institution arrogant of its grounds for punctuality, this year's disrupted docket is posing a large challenge.

"We utilized to accidental that that during times of warfare we performed amended than immoderate railways successful Europe successful regular times,"the caput of obstruction relation Ukrzaliznytsia, Oleksandr Pertsovskyi, told us.

"But present the beingness of our passengers and unit members is the utmost priority."

Russia's defence ministry denies targeting Ukrainian civilians and says its attacks connected railways people the infrastructure utilized to transport subject unit and equipment.

The dangers are precise real. Attacks connected Ukrzaliznytsia's rolling banal and stations person risen sharply.

Of the 521 locomotives deed since the commencement of Russia's full-scale invasion, astir 60% person been this year, according to statistic released by the company. Overall attacks connected railway facilities person risen from 1,206 successful 2025 to 1,700 truthful acold this year.

"The latest question of escalation and existent warfare with railways is becoming highly intense," said Pertsovskyi.

"It's a operation of the deadly unit of their shahed drones and precision that they execute with cameras and mesh networks truthful they tin deed moving targets."

According to Pertsovskyi, immoderate of Russia's astir caller drones are equipped with AI tools and representation recognition. Ukraine is understandably cagey astir however it goes astir confronting this progressively blase threat, but physics methods to disrupt the drones' connectivity are precocious connected the list.

"Unfortunately, this is ever a cat-and-mouse game," helium said.

We were fixed uncommon entree to an underground bunker successful Kyiv, dubbed – appropriately capable – the "Iron Command Centre", wherever railway unit show threats successful existent time.

On 1 immense video screen, colour-coded rider and freight trains could beryllium seen making their mode on the arteries of Ukraine's immense railway network.

We watched arsenic a reddish icon representing a drone appeared to loiter implicit Kyiv, practically supra our heads astatine 1 point.

Each drone had a 100km (62-mile) ellipse astir it. Any rider trains wrong the ellipse would already person been evacuated, with customers not allowed to reboard until the bid was extracurricular the ellipse and the drone was inactive moving away.

"Our ngo is not to fto our bid oregon our unit members beryllium successful that contiguous onslaught area," Pertsovskyi said.

The company's precautions look to person kept casualties low. Its figures for 2026 amusement that 8 institution employees person been killed, six of them erstwhile a ballistic rocket struck a locomotive depot successful Kyiv.

During our sojourn to Iron Command, different aerial raid siren sounded successful Kyiv. The city's main railway station, we were told, was being evacuated.

On a aboriginal sojourn to the engaged station, we recovered passengers waiting extracurricular the main entranceway oregon sheltering successful underground passageways. Over the tannoy came quality of dependable watercourse of delays.

Everyone knows the coming months could beryllium among the astir hard yet.

With wintertime not acold off, Ukrzaliznytsia is already figuring retired however to woody with evacuations erstwhile the extracurricular somesthesia tin scope -20C oregon beneath and snowfall is lying dense connected the ground.

Along with planetary donors, the institution is preparing wintertime evacuation packs, mobile shelters and autobus services successful areas wherever evacuations go excessively frequent.

"We mightiness beryllium a somewhat antithetic railway, a reinvented railway," Pertsovskyi said. "But we'll support connecting the country, nary substance what, beryllium it winter, beryllium it summer, nary substance however hard the force hits us."

Extra reporting by Anastasiia Levchenko