🔗 Share this article

Two Russian unmanned aerial vehicles struck railway cars at a station in Ukraine’s northern Sumy region, claiming one life and injuring about 30 others, authorities reported on Saturday.

“A vicious Russian drone strike on the train station in the town of Shostka, Sumy oblast,” wrote the Ukrainian president, Zelenskyy, on Telegram, sharing a footage of a destroyed, passenger car on fire and additional cars with their shattered windows.

Accusations of Intentional Strikes

The foreign minister of Ukraine, Sybiha, alleged Russia of intentionally carrying out two strikes on passenger trains.

“Among the most ruthless Russian tactics,” he said in a statement released by his ministry.

The Sumy region’s governor, Hryhorov, reported that eight individuals had been taken to hospital.

Civilian Impact

“Russian forces could not have been unaware that they were attacking non-combatants. This constitutes terrorism, which the international community has no right to ignore,” Zelenskyy wrote.

Russia has intensified its airstrikes on Ukraine's rail network, hitting it almost every day over the past couple of months.

The Russian government has consistently refuted targeting civilians in its conflict with Ukraine, although many thousands have been lost their lives by its military.

Railway CEO Describes Attack

In a video interview from a train en route to the strike site, the chief executive of Ukraine’s state rail company Pertsovskyi told the media that the drones had aimed at train engines, but had also harmed the connected passenger cars.

“In essence, they are targeting engines,” he said, adding that Russia was increasingly deploying this tactic.

He explained the trains hit had been a regional passenger train and an additional service traveling toward the capital, Kiev.

Strategy to Instill Terror

The railway executive stated there was exclusively non-military transport at the rail station. He said he was convinced this was a deliberate effort to make areas like Shostka, about 50km from the border with Russia, unsafe for passenger traffic.

“They are doing everything to make frontline and border areas uninhabitable, so that people are afraid to go there, afraid to board trains, scared to visit public places, and so that students are reluctant to come back.”