Kyiv (Brussels Morning Newspaper) – President Volodymyr Zelensky announced Saturday that a Russian drone attack on a railway station in Ukraine’s northeastern Sumy region injured at least 30 people.
“A brutal Russian drone strike on the railway station in Shostka, Sumy region,”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy noted on Telegram, posting a video of a destroyed, burning passenger carriage and others with their windows broken.
Since the invasion in February 2022, Russia’s army has repeatedly targeted Ukraine’s railway infrastructure.
Zelensky described the attack on Shostka station in Sumy as “savage”. “So far, we know of at least 30 victims,” including passengers and railway staff, he stated. “The Russians could not have been unaware that they were striking civilians,” he also said.
The site is approximately 50 kilometres from the Russian border. On Saturday, an additional wave of overnight strikes by Russia’s army disrupted power to about 50,000 households in the northern Chernihiv region.
How is Ukraine retaliating against russian energy infrastructure?
Ukraine’s army also announced on Saturday that it had targeted a major oil refinery in Russia’s northwestern Leningrad region. Kyiv has pledged to ramp up long-range drone strikes against Russian energy facilities, considering it a fair response to Russia’s daily assaults on its cities and power infrastructure.
In September alone, Ukraine struck 19 oil facilities across Russia and Russian-occupied territories, including key refineries in the Bryansk, Samara, Bashkortostan, and Orsk regions. These drone strikes have contributed to a marked decline in Russia’s refining capacity and have led to fuel shortages and price increases across various Russian regions. As a result, Russian diesel exports have fallen to a five-year low.
How have russian strikes disrupted Ukraine’s railway network in 2025?
Throughout 2025, Russia has ramped up its air and drone strikes on the railway network in Ukraine, hitting important railway stations and trains to hamper logistics and civilian movement. The most significant prior attack on the railway infrastructure in Ukraine originated from Russian forces on September 17, 2025. The attack involved heavy overnight strikes on multiple key railway hubs along with infrastructure.
This attack inflicted major disruption, including delays of dozens of trains, while some were diverted to routes where diesel locomotives were utilised to replace the electric locomotives whose lines sustained damage as a result of the recent attack.
