Russia Escalates Strikes on Ukrainian Rail Lines in Preparation for Major Attack – Latest Updates on Military Supplies and Energy Facilities

Russia intensified its strikes on rail lines in Ukraine to disrupt military supplies, especially American ones, in preparation for a new attack It also destroyed Ukraine’s energy facilities in 3 sectors at dawn on Saturday, and burned i shot down 68 Ukrainian drones over its territory, while Ukraine shot down 21 out of 34 Russian missiles.

Agence France-Presse quoted a Ukrainian security official, who did not want to reveal his identity, as saying, “These are traditional measures before launching a major attack” expected in the coming weeks. He emphasized that his goal was to “paralyze the supply and transportation of military cargo.”

The National Railway Company also said that Russian attacks targeted the railway infrastructure the day before yesterday, Thursday, in the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine, in the Kharkiv region in the north-east of the country, and in the central Cherkasy region.

In Donetsk (east), which is divided by the front line, 3 employees of the Ukrzaleznytsia railway company were killed in an attack on a railway site, while another attack targeted a railway station in town of Balakliya in Kharkiv (north-east), next to Russia, wounding 13 of them.

As a result of heavy bombing of railway sites in the city of Dnipro and its region (central-eastern part of the country) an employee of the Ukrzaleznytsia company died and 7 other people were injured on April 19.

A week ago, the Sumy (North) Train Station was damaged in a strike.

Ukraine’s railway network has been subject to repeated Russian bombing over the past two years. The strikes mainly targeted railway stations, such as the Kramatorsk station in the east of the country, where dozens of people, most of them civilians, were killed trying to escape from the -fight in April 2022.

For its part, the Russian army confirmed yesterday, Friday, that it had bombed “a train carrying Western weapons and military equipment” in the town of Udachny in the Donetsk region of Ukraine (east). , as well as “soldiers and military equipment” in Balaclia.

Although the Russian army did not specify the date of these strikes, it seems that it spoke about those announced by the Ukrainian authorities.

A difficult time

The strikes on Ukraine’s rail network come at a time when the United States has renewed aid to Ukraine, which had been frozen due to disagreements between Republicans and Democrats.

Last Wednesday, US President Joe Biden agreed to immediately send military aid worth $1 billion to Ukraine, the first batch of approximately $61 billion allocated to support Ukraine militarily.

The first shipment of weapons is expected to arrive within days and will include artillery shells, air defense systems and anti-drone systems, which will compensate for Kiev’s shortage of artillery shells. suffer as a result of the long delay in receiving support from the West.

In this context, the head of the Ukrainian military intelligence, Kirilo Budanov, warned last Monday that the situation on the Ukrainian front will worsen in mid-May and early June, and that It will be a “difficult time”, with increasing fear of the new. Russian invasion.

Also, Western officials predicted that the next three months would be “very difficult” for Kiev’s ground forces.

Field improvements

In a new field development, Ukraine’s Energy Minister German Galoshenko said that Russia attacked Ukraine’s energy facilities in three regions on Saturday, destroying equipment and injuring one worker at the site. .
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Galoshenko said in a post on the Telegram application that the Russian strikes targeted the Dnipropetrovsk region in central Ukraine and the Lviv and Ivano-Frankivsk regions in the west of the country.

For its part, the Ministry of Defense of Russia announced that 68 Ukrainian drones were captured last night in the Krasnodar Territory and in the Crimean Peninsula, which Moscow put in place.

The ministry said 66 of the drones were shot down over the Krasnodar Territory, and the other two were shot down over Crimea.

On the other hand, the Chief of the Ukrainian Air Force, Mykola Oleshchuk, said on Saturday that the air defenses were shot down.
21 out of 34 missiles during last night’s Russian attack.

Oleshchuk said that Ukrainian fighter jets, air defense missile units, mobile firing units and electronic warfare techniques were involved in repelling Russian missile strikes.

Provides more than 140 groups of soldiers

On the other hand, the Ukrainian group responsible for the issues of prisoners of war, in a post on the Telegram application yesterday, Friday, said that Ukraine received the bodies of 140 soldiers who were killed while try to protect Donetsk, Luhansk regions. , Zaporozhye, and Kherson against Russian attacks.

She said that once the identities of the dead have been identified, they will be handed over to their families.

It should be noted that despite the fight that has been going on for more than two years between Russia and Ukraine, the two sides regularly exchange bodies of dead soldiers and prisoners of war.

It is not yet known whether Russia has recovered the bodies of the dead soldiers, and the number of these bodies.