Evacuation of passengers on over 5800 train journeys in Ukraine during September

Since the early days of its invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Russia has been launching drone attacks on trains across the country, resulting in the destruction of hundreds of locomotives and the death of several railway workers.

The authority explained that train operations are regularly halted when Russian drones approach within 100 kilometers of the train.

Passengers are forced to disembark and wait in fields or on the side of the tracks until the threat is gone.

The authority said the longest forced train stoppage during September lasted six and a half hours.

Ukraine's extensive railway network is a vital mode of transportation in the country, as journeys between its east and west can take 24 hours.

With air travel suspended, trains are also a major route for entering and leaving the country.

In September, a train near a border crossing with Poland was targeted for the first time, raising fears that Russia is trying to cut off a vital logistics route between Kyiv and its neighbors.

Moscow said at the time that it had targeted a route used to transport weapons.

Most of the train evacuations were concentrated in the regions of Dnipro and Zaporizhzhia, which are on the front lines, and in the southern Odesa region, which is under heavy attack, where trains play a vital role in transporting agricultural exports through southern Ukraine's ports.