At least three Russian soldiers have died after Ukrainian special forces blew up a railway line and caused two trains to derail in separate attacks deep behind enemy lines.
Authorities said a diesel locomotive derailed close to St Petersburg, shortly after a freight train carrying empty fuel tanks came off its tracks in a similar area.
It followed an explosion on railway lines in Oryol, some 120 miles from the Ukrainian border, which killed three members of the Russian guard who were deployed to de-mine a bomb. The unidentified mines, found along the Maloarkhangelsk-Glazunovka section, exploded during the de-mining process.
A Ukrainian military source told The Kyiv Independent on Sunday that they had been behind the “uniquely complex” operation to disrupt Russian railway traffic, explaining that “these railway lines are critical supply routes for Russian forces operating in the Kharkiv and Sumy directions”.
Both regions experienced major disruption to transport.
Andrey Klychkov, the governor of the Oryol region, warned citizens on Saturday that the movement of several long-distance trains had been delayed, with rail-replacement buses on hand to support affected passengers. Aleksandr Drozdenko, governor of Leningrad Oblast, said that the number of buses on the Luga to Gatchina to St Petersburg route had increased following the attack.
Ukraine’s latest attack on Russian railways comes as the country attacked an enemy oil refinery overnight, sparking a fire in Kirishi, Leningrad. Kyiv says these strikes are aimed at disrupting Moscow’s war efforts. Operated by Russian oil major Surgutneftegas, the facility boasts a substantial annual output of nearly 17.7 million metric tons of crude, equivalent to 355,000 barrels per day.
As well as targeting key Russian oil and gas infrastructures, Ukraine has repeatedly targeted its opponent’s transport connections, which causes problems for the country’s residents in particular.
It is believed that tens of thousands of Russian civilians were affected after major airports in Moscow were temporarily closed in July following a sustained Ukrainian drone attack.
Drone strikes in the first months of 2025 forced Russia to suspend airport operations on multiple occasions, according to data from the Federal Air Transport Agency (Rosaviatsiya). From January to 10 May 2025, Russian airports shut down a record number of 217 times, a record number since the start of the war, Novaya Gazeta Europe reported. In contrast, there were 58 total closures in 2023 and 91 in 2024.
