Officials say a nighttime Russian attack has destroyed train tracks and rolling stock in Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region.

A nighttime Russian attack destroyed train tracks and rolling stock in Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region, officials said Friday, and authorities organized the evacuation of children from the area that is being pummeled by the Kremlin’s forces in a powerful new offensive.

The overnight strike also damaged buildings and freight cars, according to Ukraine’s national railway operator Ukrzaliznytsia. No injuries were reported.

Authorities have evacuated more than 11,000 people from the Kharkiv region since Russia launched an offensive there on May 10, regional Gov. Oleh Syniehubov said. Officials on Friday announced the mandatory evacuation over the next 60 days of 123 orphans and children living without their parents in the area.

  • tal@lemmy.todayEnglish
    6·
    4 months ago

    My guess is that the train tracks are less-significant than the trains, unless it was urgent for Russia to block traffic for a near-term initiative.

    In WW2, I know that we bombed German rail lines, and that it didn’t take very long to do repairs.

    If Russia is going to commit continued resources to hitting one spot to try to make it unrepairable, or has some way to air-deploy mines to do area denial for repair workers, maybe. Otherwise, I assume that they’re going to be fixed pretty readily.

    EDIT: Russia did apparently bomb, in the first six months of the war, a Ukrainian railcar repair facility. I haven’t been reading about strategic efforts against rolling stock, but I guess that destroying railcars might be a goal.

    The EU probably has a ton of rolling stock, but it’s in standard gauge, and Ukraine has rail lines in Russian gauge, and Ukrainian rolling stock will also be in Russian gauge. So I don’t know how easy it is for Ukraine to obtain more compatible rolling stock quickly.

    EDIT2: The Baltics and Finland still use Russian gauge (or apparently something that now diverges by 4mm, but should be close enough to work all right).

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5_ft_and_1520_mm_gauge_railways

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Track_gauge_in_Estonia

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Track_gauge_in_Europe

    Russian gauge

    • 1,520 mm (4 ft 11+27⁄32 in): former Soviet Union states

    • 1,524 mm (5 ft): Finland and Estonia

    (The difference is within tolerance limits, so it is possible to exchange trains between 1520 mm and 1524 mm networks without changes to the wheelsets.)