One of priority targets of Ukrainian strikes is Russian railway – UK intelligence
Photo: Ukraine's defense intelligence
One of the major targets of Ukraine's strikes in the war is the Russian railway, as the Russian forces actively use it in its logistics to move troops and weapons to occupied Ukrainian territories and wage war against Ukraine.
British analysts said that Russia continued to use the railway in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine even though it remained vulnerable to Ukrainian artillery, missiles, and sabotage, Rubryka reports, referring to the intelligence report of the UK Ministry of Defense.
In previous conflicts, the exhaustion of railways required regular and precise attacks by air or ground forces, UK intelligence noted. Russia continues to improve the railway in Ukraine to support its invasion, building a new line to Mariupol to speed up logistics on the Zaporizhzhia front, where the Ukrainian forces launched its counteroffensive.
Latest Defence Intelligence update on the situation in Ukraine – 15 October 2023.
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According to the intelligence, the Russians are using civilian contractors and machinery to build the line, expecting it to make it harder to strike the railway.
"The new line [to Mariupol] falls within the notional range of Ukrainian long-range precision strike systems," the intelligence report said.
The Center for Journalistic Investigations reported on October 13 that Russia was building a railway corridor in occupied Ukrainian territories.
The investigation said that, although the Russians were allegedly just going to set up the railway "development" project in the captured Ukrainian territories, the railway track and railway bridges were already appearing in the Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia regions.
As Rubryka reported earlier, the adviser to the mayor of Mariupol said that the Russian occupiers were trying to build a direct railway connection with the occupied cities of Mariupol, Volnovakha, and Donetsk. The Russian occupiers also withdrew the "dragon's teeth" from Mariupol to Berdiansk.
