Ukraine war briefing: Railway attacks disrupt Russian supply lines
Soldiers killed and tankers destroyed in Russia, while in Ukraine a train carriage carrying ammunition blows up in apparent accident. What we know on day 1,300
A source in Ukrainian military intelligence confirmed it was behind two attacks on railways that left three Russian national guard officers dead. The soldiers died when a bomb blew up a section of track in Russia’s western Oryol region late on Saturday, said the local Russian governor, Andrei Klychkov. The source in Ukraine’s GUR military intelligence told AFP that in another attack, tanker carriages were “destroyed along with their fuel”. A Russian official confirmed the derailment of freight train carrying 15 fuel tankers between the villages of Stroganovo and Mshinskaya. The Ukrainian GRU source said attacks targeted supply lines for Russian forces in the Kharkiv and Sumy areas of Ukraine. “As a result of the destruction of the railway infrastructure in these areas, the Russians will experience significant logistical difficulties.”
The Ukrainians said they also carried out a drone attack on a chemicals factory producing ingredients for explosives in Russia’s Perm region, more than 1,500km from the border between the two countries. Reports said the target was a plant in Gubakha town owned by Metafrax which is under UK and Ukrainian sanctions for supplying the Russian military.
Ukrainian drones set the Kirishi oil refinery in Russia’s north-west on fire, Russian officials said on Sunday, reporting no injuries. The refinery is one of Russia’s largest. As Ukraine continued a steady and systematic wave of attacks aimed at depriving Russia of oil revenue, Volodymr Zelenskyy, the Ukrainian president, said in his evening address: “The most effective sanctions – the sanctions that act the fastest – are fire on Russian oil refineries, their terminals, oil depots.”
A cargo of ammunition blew up a train carriage near Boyarka outside Kyiv and damaged a section of track on Sunday. No one was injured, Ukrainian authorities said, although more than 200 passengers had to be evacuated and trains were rerouted around the damage. A Russian attack was not immediately suspected; the military cargo was confirmed by Ukraine’s military general staff. Yulia Svyrydenko, Ukraine’s prime minister, said: “The investigation into the causes of the incident is ongoing. Law enforcement agencies will provide more details later.”
Ukraine’s navy said its forces hit a communications node of the Russian Black Sea fleet in Crimea. “On the night of September 11, units of the naval forces struck a communications node of the Russian Black Sea Fleet on the territory of the 184th scientific and research experimental base Sevastopol, in the temporarily occupied Autonomous Republic of Crimea. The specified communications node provided control of the Russian Black Sea fleet units.”
Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Sunday that Ukrainian forces advanced in border districts of northern Sumy region where Russian troops have been trying to gain a foothold. “Our units are continuing to advance in the direction of Ukraine’s state border,” said the president. Moscow’s forces had also suffered significant losses in Donetsk and Kharkiv regions along the 1,000km (620-mile) frontline, said Zelenskyy, after a week of Russia proclaiming gains in the central Dnipropetrovsk region. The claims could not be independently verified.
The Russia-appointed head of parts of Donetsk region under Moscow’s control, Denis Pushilin, said in a video posted online that Russian forces were attempting a pincer movement near villages around Pokrovsk. The Institute for the Study of War, in an analysis on Sunday, said Russian forces had recently advanced near Pokrovsk, Novopavlivka and Velykomykhailivka, and in the Kostyantynivka-Druzhkivka tactical area. The governor of Ukraine’s Kherson region, Oleksandr Prokudin, said on Telegram that two people had died in shelling and drone attacks in different parts of the region.
Romania on Sunday protested about the entry of a Russian drone into its airspace during an attack on neighbouring Ukraine by summoning the Kremlin’s ambassador to the foreign ministry. Romania’s defence ministry said a Russian Geran drone “orbited for about 50 minutes, from north-east of [the village of] Chilia Veche to south-west of Izmail, and left national airspace near the town of Pardina, heading towards Ukraine”. Romania scrambled two F-16 fighter jets “supported by German allies … with two Eurofighter Typhoon aircraft”.
Poland’s foreign minister, Radosław Sikorski, meanwhile said that last week’s Russian drone incursion into Polish airspace was an attempt by the Kremlin to test Nato’s reactions. Polish anti-drone teams will receive training from Ukrainian operators to help defend against future attacks, said Sikorski, who was attending the annual Yalta European Strategy conference in Ukraine, writes Shaun Walker.