According to Ukrainian media reports, among the victims was Ruslan Nadych, a soldier of the 17th Special Purpose Center, who had served in the army since 2014.
According to the Ukrainian prosecutor’s office, around 150 people were on the train at the time of the attack.
Consequences of the attack on a train in Mykolaiv in early March:
Russians attacked a passenger train in Mykolaiv with a drone.
This is a selective attack against civilians. Every day, the Russian army deliberately kills civilians in Ukraine.
This is terrorism.
— Denis Kazansky (@den_kazansky)
The soldier advised the passengers to lie down on the floor
Witnesses of the attack confirmed that the Russians hit the train intentionally.
A soldier nicknamed Omar, who helped evacuate passengers after the attack, described the train stopping after the first explosion.
He himself told the people with whom he was in the train to all lie down on the floor, because he assumed that the Russians would watch the attack through drones and strike again.
“Intuition did not let me down, there was a repeated blow. I heard a shout that it was on fire. I told everyone who was on the train to gather, I opened the doors, lowered the stairs. I understood that the train was the main target,” Omara was quoted by the website, adding that the train was mostly elderly women, young women who were following their men to the frontline places, and a few soldiers who were returning to the front after treatment.
Attacks on wagons and depots
The railway company Ukrzaliznycja itself points out that the Russians have intensified their attacks on trains. In March, during the first four days alone (from March 1 to 4, note ed.), the state carrier recorded up to 18 attacks, either by long-range attack drones or FPV drones.
“The enemy is also attacking civilian wagons. This morning (March 4), an enemy drone attacked a wagon with passengers in Mykolaiv. However, our monitoring group spotted it in the air and evacuated people. The attack was without casualties, the train inspector was injured,” the railway company, according to which trains face attacks mainly in regions closer to the front line.
This is also why several train connections were canceled, such as those to cities such as Barvinkove, Sloviansk and Kramatorsk. In several areas, railway workers had to change routes.
The Russians attack not only locomotives, but also freight cars, equipment used to repair railway infrastructure, depots, and in March they also attacked bridges.
Evacuees from the train warm themselves by the fire:
Russia has started targeting Ukrainian passenger trains recently.
So now, in case of attack, trains stop and people get out (train cars burn down in minutes if attacked).
Passengers of the Lozova-Lviv train lit up a fire as they wait for hours for the attack to end. It’s still…
— Anton Gerashchenko (@Gerashchenko_en)
Passengers must exit the train when the drone approaches
Ukrainian Railways monitors the threat in cooperation with the military, which monitors the movement of drones.
If the Armed Forces of Ukraine assess that the drones have a suspicious direction, are heading towards the train route and could endanger it, railway workers are instructed to evacuate people promptly.
It happens that, for example, passengers of night trains have to quickly get off the train in the middle of the night and wait for drones to fly over the fields. Ukrzaliznycja has already prepared a manual for passengers, in which it encourages them not to panic, to help other passengers and to listen to the instructions of the guides.
In one of the instructions, they should pay attention to safety during the evacuation and make sure that they are not in danger of colliding with another train. This is what happened on Sunday to a young conductor who was helping with the evacuation of a train in the Cherkasy region. Tragically, she was caught by another train, which was also approaching the evacuation stop.
He stayed on the train, it became fatal for him
On Tuesday morning, the Russians attacked a train in the Kharkiv region for a change.
According to Ukrzaliznycje, the drone hit the last carriage of a suburban train on the route Slatyne – Kharkiv.
“Immediately after the warning signal was triggered, the train staff and several passengers moved to the shelter deployed at Slatyne station, which saved their lives. Unfortunately, one person died. According to preliminary information verified by investigators, the deceased refused to evacuate,” on the railway’s social network, appealing to passengers not to neglect safety rules.
The toll of the Russian attacks is the subsequent delays of several hours, as the trains have to stop and wait until their route is safe again. Ukrainian railways have long maintained the standard of always bringing passengers to their destination stations on time.
