By Jonathan Landai
FASTIV, Ukraine (Reuters) – A volley of missiles led the Kremlin’s war against Ukraine in Fastiv, a quiet city full of blossoming cherry trees and located on vast agricultural lands hundreds of kilometers from the front line.
The April 28 strike, in which two people were injured, struck an electrical substation that fuels railroad mergers that form a key hub for networks connecting Central Europe, Russia and Asia.
The damage was quickly repaired, Ukrainian officials said, and a visit to Reuters last week did not reveal a lasting impact. Trains ran between Kyiv and the southern port of Odessa, dropping passengers off at the station in Fastiv, a city of 45,000 people, 75km (45 miles) south of the capital.
Officials said the attack was part of an escalating Russian attack on infrastructure aimed in part at paralyzing the rail supply of Western-supplied weapons, as well as reinforcements supporting Ukrainian forces fighting east and south.
So far, Moscow’s efforts have failed, turning Ukraine’s state railways into a leading symbol of the country’s resilience.
“The longest delay we’ve had is less than an hour,” said Alexander Kamishin, 37, a former investment banker who supports train traffic as the CEO of the railways, Ukraine’s largest employer.
“They have not collided with any military train.”
Russia’s Defense Ministry says Ukrainian facilities supplying the railways have been the subject of missile strikes as trains are used to supply foreign weapons to Ukrainian forces.
The railway system is affected not only because it is crucial for military supplies, Ukrainian officials said.
“Moscow’s goal is to destroy critical infrastructure as much as possible for military, economic and social reasons,” Deputy Infrastructure Minister Yuri Vaskov said in an interview.
With Russian warships blocking Black Sea ports, collapsed bridges and checkpoints blocking roads, and fuel bursts roaring trucks, Ukraine’s 22,000 km (14,000 miles) trail is the main lifeline of a struggling economy and road to the outside world.
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Trains have evacuated millions of civilians fleeing to safer parts of the country or abroad.
They began delivering small grain shipments to neighboring counties to circumvent Russia’s naval blockade. Ukraine was the world’s fourth-largest grain exporter in the 2020/21 season, and exports disrupted by the war disrupted global food chains and helped global inflation.
Internally, trains distribute humanitarian aid and other goods. They allowed the restart of the AcelorMittal steel plant in Krivoy Rog by bringing in workers and exporting products, Kamishin said. They are transporting civilian victims in ambulances with Doctors Without Borders staff.
Since Russia invaded on February 24th, he said, trains have distributed more than 140,000 tonnes of food and will carry about 1m kilograms of mail to the state postal service by mid-May.
Russian attacks on some of the 1,000 stations have killed dozens of civilians, including dozens killed in an attack in April at a station in the eastern city of Kramatorsk.
This did not stop the passengers.
The daily number of passengers reached 200,000, Kamishin said in an interview Saturday as he passed a train on a bridge that had been repaired after being severely damaged during Russia’s failed invasion of Kyiv from the suburb of Irpin.
Nor have 230,000 railway employees remained at home, although 122 were killed and 155 others injured at work and at home, Kamishin said.
Moscow denies attacking civilian targets in what it calls a “special military operation” to disarm Ukraine and liberate itself from what it calls Western-backed anti-Russian nationalism. Ukraine and the West say Russia has started an unprovoked aggressive war.
Reuters has failed to independently verify allegations by Kamyshin and other Ukrainian officials about their success in maintaining the railways in wartime.
THE LIFE OF UKRAINE
Helena Muskrivska, 56, chief of Irpin station, said she had worked during the first four days of the Russian attack, helping evacuate about 1,000 people and transmitting local events by landline to Kyiv. She took documents and equipment home when it became too dangerous.
“I was here when the Russians entered the station. I didn’t want to see them face to face, “Muskrivska said.
A group of current and former rail leaders in the United States and Europe formed Ukraine’s International Rail Support Task Force in March to raise money for protective equipment, first aid kits and financial aid for railway personnel.
“Everywhere there is a lot of effort to raise money for Ukraine, but none of it goes to the railroad,” said Jolin Molitoris, a former head of the US Federal Railroad, which chairs the group. “This is the country’s lifeline.”
The group also aims to finance the purchase of heavy machinery, rails and other equipment sought after by the railways.
Kamishin said he was competing against the Russian attacks, deploying teams of workers and dispatchers around the clock to repair the rails and divert trains. “It’s all for hours, not days.”
He and his top aides are constantly moving, taking trains to inspect damage and repairs around Ukraine, he said, adding: “Once they break it, we fix it.”
Kamishin said his top priority is to divert grain exports from Ukraine’s southern ports to Poland, Romania and the Baltic states to help revive the economy. He said Russia would remain a threat even after what he called his inevitable defeat.
“This crazy neighbor will stay with us,” he said. “No one knows when they will come again.”
(Additional report by Pavel Polityuk; edited by Francis Carey)
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