Ukraine's passenger trains keep running amid Russian drone threat, with repeated evacuations

Mixed · 2Ukrainian passenger trains are still running despite the threat of Russian drone attacks, but passengers face repeated evacuations and long delays, according to a report from a train between Dnipro and Odesa dated 28 October. 1 2 Mixed · 2Beauty salon owner Antonina Viter, 36, who travels at least six times a month to manage two salons in Kyiv and Dnipro, said: "Every third trip, we end up evacuating once, twice or even three times." 1 2 Mixed · 2On the roughly 400 km (250 miles) Dnipro–Odesa line, the outward journey featured eight evacuations of about 30 minutes each and the return journey nine; the train nonetheless arrived only an hour and 20 minutes late, although delays of 5 to 12 hours are not unusual on the route. 1 2

Mixed · 2Ukraine has set new rules for rail passengers during air-raid alerts, and during alerts passengers can be woken and forced to scramble into fields or up and down embankments, sometimes with children or pets, in sub-zero temperatures in winter. 1 2 Mixed · 2The state operator Ukrzaliznytsia says Russia has attacked more than 1,700 rail facilities this year, including stations, locomotives and passenger wagons; Russia says its targets are objects used by Kyiv's military. 1 2 Mixed · 2Direct attacks include a drone strike that killed two train drivers on the Dnipro–Odesa line on 13 August and a strike on a Warsaw-bound train near the Polish border in September, and some stations in the east and south have been shut indefinitely as fighting nears. 1 2

Mixed · 2The report says new Russian jet-powered drones that are hard to shoot down have hit targets from shopping centres to power plants, and that the risk to rail travellers has grown as Russia broadened its drone and ballistic-missile campaign, exploiting Kyiv's shortage of air defence missiles. 1 2 Mixed · 2Ukraine's infrastructure minister said more than 50 railway workers have died on duty this year; staff close carriage curtains at the start of each journey to avoid showing light to drones, and conductors log every interruption. 1 2 Mixed · 2Passengers and crew describe adapting: IT worker Larysa Konstantynova said "you just try to be positive and survive", and locomotive driver Mykola Kovalenko said: "If I quit, who will drive the trains?" 1 2