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 four years, Ukrainians have always known that despite the shelling of railway infrastructure, Ukrainian trains are less likely to be late than trains in neighbouring Poland or Germany further to the west.

This work is being continued in extremely harsh conditions under systemic Russian attacks that aim to prevent the normal 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 target 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 occupation of Ukrainian territory has made railway connections impossible in many areas.

The most recent 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 several regions of Ukraine; and attacks on April 22nd and 23rd that killed two 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 result of direct attacks on railway assets and 920 were injured. These include railway personnel, passengers or other people who happened to be in proximity to railway tracks or trains at the moment of the attacks.

Having begun back in 2022, the Russian attacks on Ukraine’s railway system 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 near Kovel, a city some 60 kilometres away from the Ukrainian-Polish border. On January 27th 2026, six passengers were killed as a result 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 similar attacks before. But it is the regions bordering Russia that are currently suffering the most from these drone attacks.

According to the Ukrzaliznytsia Chairman 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 also targeting the locomotives. But Ukrzaliznytsia does not specify the number.

For Ukrainians, the damage done to the railways is reflected in a reduction 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, several local commuter trains in the Sumy and Kharkiv regions bordering Russia were removed from the schedule. Ukrzaliznytsia has also stopped selling tickets for the train connecting Sumy and Kharkiv without specifying when this route might return. Given that both cities are administrative centres of regions directly bordering Russia and positioned about 25 kilometres from the current frontlines, the train route has been considered too risky to run. Due to the accumulated damage 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 currently end their trip in Poltava (a city about 140 kilometres away from Kharkiv). Passengers then transfer to another train that is then pulled towards Kharkiv by a diesel locomotive.

The company has also 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 such an evacuation looks like just days after the new procedure was introduced, when an overnight train from Kharkiv to Kyiv was forced to stop at around two 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 several regions of Ukraine. The Poltava region, through which the train was passing when 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 quite lightly, but at night the temperature dropped below zero. In the dim train lights, one could see frost glistening on last year's dry grass.

Within a few 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 move away from the cars and hide in the forest strip near the track. The passengers had been waiting for the end of the attack for more than an hour and a half, mostly in silence. At some point a child about five-years-old cried out in the darkness: “Mom, I am tired, I will sleep right here on the street.” The young mother sat down on the ground, hugging the child, trying to calm it down. Fortunately, the alarm was over very soon after that, and the passengers were able to return to the cars.

On the way to Kyiv, the train partially reduced the delay and arrived at the final station one hour 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 two people.

A few hours after the train arrived in Kyiv, the Ukrzaliznytsia Chairman Oleksandr Pertsovsky held a press conference to explain the newly introduced safety and evacuation procedures for passenger trains. According to Pertsovsky, the need for the new 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 remain outside of it.

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

With the recent experience on the train from Kharkiv to Kyiv still fresh in my memory, I dress and pack in a way that prepares me for a sudden night-time evacuation on my voyage to Sumy. The train travelled most of the route from Kyiv to Sumy without problems, halting shortly in the middle of the night without evacuating its passengers. However, in the morning the train suddenly stopped and stood still for more than half an hour a dozen kilometres from Sumy. Eventually the carriage conductor announced the evacuation. A few minutes prior, the Ukrainian Air Force reported on its WhatsApp channel that drones were moving towards one 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. One 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 explosion in the distance that seems to have been a loitering munition hitting a target some dozen kilometres away, but twenty minutes after the evacuation, the chief train conductor announces that the passengers may now return to their seats. Soon the train continues, but at a rather slow pace as it closes in on Sumy, while an air raid siren sounds in the city. The train arrives at Sumy station a few minutes after it ends. The train is two hours behind the scheduled arrival time. This is not bad at all, considering that on some 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 one of the destroyed railway buildings. It was hit in one of the previous Russian attacks. The passengers are already waiting for the train. Just a few minutes after arriving in Sumy, it will travel in the opposite direction. The trains going to Sumy and other regions close to the border spend the least possible amount of time when in train stations there.

According to transport experts, Russian attacks on Ukrzaliznytsia will continue. They have several goals. Olexandr Pertsovskyi believes they aim to complicate the lives of civilians in frontline regions and communities. At the same time, the former 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 difficult as possible. Another aim is to slow the supplies for the military. There is 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 reduction of services in a number of regions of the country hits the most vulnerable people the hardest.

The reduction 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 such places as Sumy, this means a significant 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 route by train can be bought for 200 hryvnia (3,90 euros). Some passengers avoid travelling by bus for security reasons. Anna Olshanska, the communications manager for the local Sumy media outlet Cukr, says she now avoids the buses as they are also targeted by the drones. However, unlike the railways they do not have access to the warning system of the air force.

"It feels like we're being cut off from the rest of the country," says Viktoriya, a Sumy civic activist who travels around Ukraine frequently. She returned to Sumy from a business trip the day I arrived in the city and was also 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 maintain the existing services and is going to equip its locomotive with radio jamming technologies. Several weeks after its introduction, the company also 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 fifty kilometres of the train’s location. But the reduction 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 a Ukrainian journalist and a contributing editor with New Eastern Europe.