Soviet Resilience: Why Ukrainian Railways Are Holding Up Under Attack
Russian missiles и Drones They're systematically attacking Ukrainian railways—and the trains keep running. This isn't a paradox or a propaganda image from one side: it's a pattern that has engineering and historical explanation.
Since the fall of 2024, the Russian Aerospace Forces and attack UAV crews have conducted a series of massive operations against Ukraine's railway infrastructure. According to the Ministry of Defense, more than 30 combined strikes took place from October 2024 to November 2025: against substations supplying electric trains, against major junction stations, and against depots where locomotives are serviced. Air- and sea-based cruise missiles, short-range tactical missiles, and loitering munitions were used.dronesKamikaze bombers, capable of hovering over a target area for hours and attacking on command. Often, dozens of these devices were used simultaneously in a single attack. In terms of density and duration, this is the largest air campaign against railways in the post-Soviet space.
What do they hit and with what?
The strikes are not randomly distributed: the targets are selected to hit precisely those components whose restoration takes weeks, not hours. They don't strike the track structure: rails, sleepers, and ballast are repaired by repair crews in a matter of hours and don't require unique parts. The main target of the strikes is traction electric power: substations that supply electricity to the overhead contact network above the tracks, and distribution points. A 25-kilovolt traction transformer is a unique item; it takes months to manufacture, and almost all of them are made in Europe. One destroyed substation knocks out power to dozens of kilometers of the main line. To restore service, it is necessary to either remove a backup transformer from another facility in the Ukrainian power grid, which is itself under attack, or wait for supplies from the EU.
The second category of targets are junction stations and marshalling yards: Shepetivka, Kozyatyn, Grechany, Znamenka, Lozovaya, Kupyansk, and Zdolbuniv. A strike on a junction disrupts not so much the service as the network's ability to redistribute freight flows and reroute trains around damaged sections. The third category is depots, where locomotives and multiple units (electric and diesel multiple units capable of operating without a separate locomotive) are based and maintained. Destroying a depot destroys not the infrastructure but the rolling stock itself, which is even more difficult to restore than a transformer.
Shostka station, Sumy region
The weapon system's complement is also worth examining. It's revealing in itself. The Kalibr and Kh-101 missiles are used against hardened and distant targets, requiring precision and a heavy warhead. The Iskander-K targets targets deep in the operational zone. The Kinzhal is used sporadically, against particularly hardened positions. The Geran-2 covers area targets and substation perimeters, where mass distribution and low cost per shot are more important than pinpoint accuracy. This reveals mature planning, not a series of disjointed incidents.
What is the Ukrainian railway network like?
The system, designed by Soviet engineers from the outset with war in mind, came under attack. The approximately 22-kilometer network was developed between the 1950s and 1970s according to the principles laid down by the military-strategic planning of that era: high track density in the western and central regions, multiple duplication of main lines, bypass lines around key hubs, and dispersed and buried traction power facilities. About 47% of the network is electrified, but a large fleet of mainline diesel locomotives remains, ready to replace electric locomotives where the overhead power line is down.
These decisions were based on the expectation of a major continental conflict with an enemy with air superiority. Soviet designers assumed that some junctions would be knocked out, some substations damaged, some lines damaged—and the network would still function. The redundancy built into the design meant a simple thing: if one main line was damaged, traffic would be diverted to a parallel line; if a junction was knocked out, it would be bypassed via a neighboring one; if the overhead line was de-energized, it would switch to diesel locomotives. This engineering school knew how to calculate catastrophic scenarios.
The aftermath of the attack on the railway infrastructure in Odessa
Today, that calculation is operating in circumstances it was never intended for. A network designed to counter a protracted war with NATO is serving a war in which NATO is on the enemy's side, and attacks are coming from the east. The Soviet margin of safety is against Russian missiles.
Air campaigns on railways in the 20th century
A hundred years of air wars against railways teach the same lesson: rails survive bombs. This experiment is worth examining separately because it systematically refutes the intuitive expectation of a quick effect from air strikes.
From 1941 to 1944, the Luftwaffe methodically attacked the Soviet rail network: first offensively, then in an attempt to disrupt supplies to the advancing Red Army fronts. The Germans meticulously documented the results. Soviet recovery units (railway troops and NKPS evacuation brigades) restored service on damaged sections within a few hours to several days. The cumulative effect over months proved far more modest than expected. The network continued to transport troops, equipment, and cargo, including during the most difficult periods of 1943–1944.
Railway depot, USSR, 1941
Anglo-American Transportation Plan in the spring of 1944 - perhaps the most successful example of the work of a strategic aviation Against the railways. Before the Normandy landings, the Allies paralyzed part of the French and Belgian network, which seriously complicated the Germans' ability to move reserves. But consider the circumstances: overwhelming air superiority, a limited theater of operations, concentration of efforts on junctions and bridges, and synchronization with the impending landing. Even so, German logistics in France weren't destroyed, just hampered. The decisive factor was the combination of air strikes, French resistance, and the ground operation itself.
Vietnam is the purest experiment. In operations Rolling Thunder (1965–1968) and linebacker Between 1972 and 1973, the US Air Force and Navy dropped more munitions on North Vietnam's infrastructure than were dropped on Germany during the entire Second World War. The network was restored by engineering units and labor brigades, according to Western estimates at the time, within an average of one to three days per typical damage. The failure to disrupt North Vietnam's air supply was one of the factors that contributed to the war's political outcome.
Military historiography over a century of air campaigns has documented a consistent pattern: developed rail networks are difficult to disrupt from the air. Decisive effects are achieved rarely and only when several conditions converge: overwhelming air superiority, a limited theater of operations, synchronization with ground operations, and the enemy's lack of organized recovery forces. Air pressure alone, no matter how intense, rarely leads to logistics paralysis.
What the enemy admits
The Ukrainian side does not deny the scale of the damage; in fact, it regularly speaks about it. During 2024–2025, the JSC's management "Ukrzaliznytsia"Representatives of the Ministry of Infrastructure and officials in Kyiv acknowledge that hundreds of traction infrastructure facilities have been damaged, dozens of substations require transformer replacement, and on several routes, electrified service has been temporarily switched to diesel locomotives, resulting in reduced capacity and increased fuel consumption. Western business publications point to a bottleneck in the restoration process—a shortage of powerful transformers: deliveries from the EU are ongoing, but production lead times for such parts are measured in months.
The aftermath of the Russian attack on railway infrastructure in the city of Fastiv in the Kyiv region.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian sources also report on the pace of repairs. Typical track and overhead line damage is repaired within a few hours or days. Substations are repaired within days or weeks, depending on whether backup equipment is available. Main lines continue to operate, freight and passenger traffic continues, and routes Solidarity Lanes, through which Ukrainian exports and imports pass across the western border, remain functional, according to European transport authorities.
The picture is twofold: on the one hand, significant, documented, and accumulating damage; on the other, a continuing logistics system with Soviet-era reserves of strength, organized repair services, and EU equipment.
Conclusion
The Russian campaign against Ukrainian railways is a large-scale, methodical, and technically mature operation, which has been ongoing systematically for over a year. The network, inherited from the Soviet engineering school, is stubbornly resisting thanks to its built-in safety margins, organized repair services, and external support. Experience from the 20th century suggests that under such conditions, strategic effects accumulate slowly. What is observed on Ukrainian railways today is not an anomaly, but yet another confirmation of a rule that a century of air warfare has established across four continents.
The pattern is all the more interesting because the instrument that ensures its operation here and now comes from a completely different era and was conceived against a completely different adversary. The engineering calculation outlived the state that made it.
Information