KYIV — Russian forces launched a series of attacks across Ukraine on Thursday, striking three rail locomotives and two fuel stations, according to Ukrainian officials. One person was killed in the assault, the latest in a mounting wave of strikes on the country’s infrastructure.
The CEO of Ukraine’s state-owned railway company, Ukrzaliznytsia, Oleksandr Pertsovskyi, confirmed the strikes in a Facebook post, saying two of the locomotive attacks occurred in the southern Zaporizhzhia region and one in the northeastern Sumy region.
Pertsovskyi described how two train crews were able to escape without injury, but the third strike had a tragic outcome. “Two crews were evacuated in time and none of them was hurt, but the third strike in Zaporizhzhia ended in tragedy: the driver managed to get to safety, but the assistant driver, who was in the rear cab, could not be saved,” he said.
Local officials confirmed that fuel stations in both Zaporizhzhia and Sumy were also hit during the attacks.
Earlier this month, Pertsovskyi told Reuters that Russia had struck more than 100 locomotives since the start of the year — a rate he described as “simply insane.” He accused Moscow of deliberately trying to shut down Ukrzaliznytsia’s operations entirely.
Both Russia and Ukraine have been targeting each other’s fuel supplies and transportation networks in an effort to cut off resources reaching front-line troops. The conflict, now in its fifth year, has seen repeated strikes on logistics infrastructure on both sides.
Earlier in June, Ukrainian attacks on Russian fuel supply lines caused widespread shortages in numerous Russian regions and in Russian-occupied Crimea.
