Russian freight train with enhanced security to operate in temporarily occupied Donbas

Russia is trying to restore railway services in temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine, adapting them to wartime conditions. They have assembled a train with a "reinforced protection system", including a separate section equipped to counter drones.

Source: Ukraine's Centre for Transport Strategies

Details: Petro Andriushchenko, Head of the Centre for the Study of Occupation, said that "a specially prepared train with a 'reinforced protection system' was assembled at the depot in Melitopol with the involvement of the Russian Ministry of Transport".

Quote from Andriushchenko: "The train includes a separate section with equipment to counter drones, while the drivers' cabs and fuel tanks have been additionally reinforced and the locomotive's running gear has been shielded with metal plating."

Details: The Russian ministry explains that this is necessary to "ensure the safety of locomotive crews and the security of freight" on the Volnovakha-Melitopol route.

Quote from Andriushchenko: "In practice, this is an attempt to run trains in an area of constant danger, where even civilian infrastructure is being forced into a semi‑military mode."

Background:

• In September, partisans from the ATESH resistance movement blew up railway tracks leading to an aircraft plant in Smolensk that produces Kh‑59 missiles for the Russian Defence Ministry.
• Russia has also launched its first container train to annexed Crimea via other temporarily occupied Ukrainian territories. The train ran on the Sverdlovsk railway under a specially designed timetable through the occupied parts of Donbas, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson oblasts.
• Earlier, Russia added the occupied Ukrainian ports of Mariupol and Berdiansk to the list of ports open to calls by foreign vessels.

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