俄羅斯對鐵路系統的襲擊未能癱瘓“烏克蘭的生命線”

Recently Yahoo News on-line reported the following:

Russian attacks on rail system fail to paralyze 'lifeline of Ukraine'

Sun, May 8, 2022, 11:49 AM

By Jonathan Landay

FASTIV, Ukraine (Reuters) - A salvo of missiles brought the Kremlin’s war on Ukraine to Fastiv, a quiet town abounding with flowering cherry trees and set in sweeping farmland hundreds of kilometres from the front lines.

The strike on April 28, which injured two people, hit an electrical substation that feeds power to a confluence of railway lines that forms a key hub of networks linking central Europe, Russia, and Asia.

The damage quickly was repaired, said Ukrainian officials, and a Reuters visit last week revealed no lingering impact. Trains plied between Kyiv and the southern port of Odesa, disgorging passengers into the station at Fastiv, a town of 45,000 people 75 km (45 miles) south of the capital.

Officials said the attack was part of an escalating Russian assault on infrastructure, aimed in part at paralyzing rail deliveries of Western-supplied arms and also reinforcements sustaining Ukrainian forces fighting in the east and south.

So far, Moscow's effort has failed, making state-owned Ukrainian Railways a leading symbol of the country's resilience.

"The longest delay we’ve had has been less than an hour," said Oleksandr Kamyshin, 37, a former investment banker who keeps the trains running as the CEO of the railways, Ukraine's largest employer.

“They haven’t hit a single military train."

The Russian defense ministry has said Ukrainian facilities powering the railways have been targeted by missile strikes because trains are used to deliver foreign arms to Ukrainian forces.

The rail system is being hit not just because it is critical to military supplies, Ukrainian officials said.

Moscow's "goal is to destroy critical infrastructure as much as possible for military, economic and social reasons," Deputy Infrastructure Minister Yuri Vaskov said in an interview.

With Russian warships blockading Black Sea ports, downed bridges and checkpoints obstructing roadways, and a fuel crunch snarling trucking, Ukraine’s 22,000 km (14,000 miles) of track are the main lifeline of the struggling economy and a passage to the outside world.

Trains have evacuated millions of civilians fleeing to safer parts of the country or abroad.

They have begun running small grain shipments to neighboring counties to circumvent Russia's maritime blockade. Ukraine was the world’s fourth largest grain exporter in the 2020/21 season and exports disrupted by the war have interrupted global food chains and helped fuel worldwide inflation.

Internally, trains are distributing humanitarian aid and other cargoes. They enabled the restart of the AcelorMittal steel plant, in Kryvyi Rih, by bringing workers in and product out, said Kamyshin. They carry civilian casualties in hospital cars staffed by Doctors Without Borders.

Since Russia invaded on Feb. 24, he said, trains have distributed more than 140,000 tonnes of food and will have carried some 1 million kilos of mail for the state postal service by mid-May.

Russian attacks on some of the 1,000 stations have killed scores of civilians, including dozens killed in an attack in April in the station in the eastern city of Kramatorsk.

That has not deterred passengers.

Daily ridership has reached as many as 200,000 passengers, Kamyshin said in an interview on Saturday as he rode a train across a bridge that had been repaired after being badly damaged during Russia's failed advance on Kyiv from the suburb of Irpin.

Nor have the railway’s 230,000 personnel stayed home even though 122 have been killed and 155 others wounded on the job and in their houses, said Kamyshin.

Moscow denies striking civilian targets in what it calls a "special military operation" to disarm Ukraine and rid it of what it calls anti-Russian nationalism fomented by the West. Ukraine and the West say Russia launched an unprovoked war of aggression.

Reuters was not able to independently verify the assertions of Kamyshin and other Ukrainian officials about their successes keeping the railways going in wartime.

UKRAINE'S 'LIFELINE'

Helena Muskrivska, 56, the Irpin station master, said she worked for the first four days of the Russian assault, helping evacuate some 1,000 people and relaying local developments by landline to Kyiv. She took documents and equipment home when it became too dangerous.

“I was here when the Russians came into the station. I didn’t want to see them face to face,” said Muskrivska.

A group of current and former U.S. and European railway executives formed the International Support Ukraine Rail Task Force in March to raise money for protective gear, first aid kits and financial aid for railway staff.

“There's a lot of fundraising efforts everywhere for Ukraine, but none of it goes to the railroad,” said Jolene Molitoris, a former U.S. Federal Railroad Administration chief who chairs the group. “It is the lifeline of the country.”

The group also aims to fund purchases of heavy machinery, rails and other equipment sought by the railways.

Kamyshin said he is racing against the Russian attacks, deploying teams of workers and dispatchers around the clock to fix tracks and reroute trains. “It’s all about hours, not about days.”

He and top aides constantly move, taking trains to inspect damage and repairs around Ukraine, he said, adding: "Once they break it, we fix it".

Kamyshin said his top priority is redirecting grain exports from Ukraine’s southern ports to Poland, Romania, and the Baltic states to help revive the economy. He said Russia would remain a threat even after what he called its inevitable defeat.

“This crazy neighbor will stay with us,” he said. “No one knows when they will come again.”

Translation

烏克蘭法斯蒂夫（路透社）- 導彈齊射將克里姆林宮對烏克蘭的戰爭帶到了法斯蒂夫 (Fastiv)，這是一個安靜的小鎮，到處都是開花的櫻桃樹，位於距離前線數百公里的廣闊農田中。

4 月 28 日的導彈襲擊了一個變電站，該變電站為鐵路線的交匯處供電，該鐵路線是連接中歐、俄羅斯和亞洲的重要網絡樞紐。

烏克蘭官員說，損壞很快得到修復，路透社上週的訪問顯示沒有殘餘的長期影響。火車在基輔和南部港口 Odesa 之間穿梭，將乘客運送到首都以南 75 公里（45 英里）處擁有 45,000 人的小鎮Fastiv的車站。

官員們說，這次襲擊是俄羅斯對基礎設施不斷升級的攻擊的一部分，部分目的是癱瘓西方提供的武器的鐵路運輸,及癱瘓支持在東部和南部作戰的烏克蘭部隊的增援。

到目前為止，莫斯科的努力失敗了，使國有的烏克蘭鐵路公司成為該國復原力的主要像徵。

37 歲的前投資銀行家 Oleksandr Kamyshin 說: “我們遇到的最長延誤不到一個小時”; 他鐵路公司的首席執行官，是烏克蘭最大雇主, 負責維持火車的運行。“

“他們沒有打中任何一列軍用火車。”

俄羅斯國防部表示，為鐵路提供電能的烏克蘭設施已成為導彈襲擊的目標，​​因為火車被用來向烏克蘭軍隊運送外國武器。

烏克蘭官員說，鐵路系統受到打擊不僅僅是因為它對軍事物資至關重要。

基礎設施副部長 Yuri Vaskov 在接受採訪時說, 莫斯科的“目標是出於軍事,經濟和社會原因, 盡可能多地摧毀關鍵基礎設施” 。

隨著俄羅斯軍艦封鎖黑海港口、倒塌的橋樑和檢查站阻塞道路，以及卡車運輸的燃料緊縮，烏克蘭 22,000 公里（14,000 英里）的軌道是陷入困境的烏克蘭經濟的主要生命線, 和通往外部世界的通道。

火車已經疏散了數百萬逃往國內或國外更安全地區的平民。

他們已經開始向鄰國運送少量糧食，以規避俄羅斯的海上封鎖。烏克蘭是 2020/21 年度世界第四大穀物出口國，受戰爭影響的出口中斷了全球食物鏈，助長了全球通脹。

在國內，火車正在分發人道主義援助和其他貨物。 Kamyshin 說，他們通過引進工人和生產產品，重新啟動了位於 Kryvyi Rih 的 AcelorMittal 鋼鐵廠。他們運送受傷平民到由無國界醫生組織運作的醫院。

他說，自俄羅斯於 2 月 24 日入侵以來，火車已經分發了超過 14 萬噸食品，到 5 月中旬將為國家郵政服務運送約 100 萬公斤的郵件。

俄羅斯對 1,000 個車站中的一些車站發動襲擊，造成近百名平民死亡，其中數十人在 4 月東部城市 Kramatorsk 車站的襲擊中喪生。

這並沒有阻嚇乘客。

Kamyshin 週六在接受採訪時說，每天的乘客量已達到 200,000 人次，他乘坐火車穿過一座橋樑，該橋在俄羅斯從Irpin郊區向基輔推進失敗後嚴重受損，該橋已被修復。

Kamyshin說，儘管有 122 人遇難，另有 155 人在工作中和在家中受傷，但鐵路的 230,000 名人員也沒有閑留在家中。

莫斯科否認在其所謂的“特別軍事行動”中打擊平民目標，説行動是去解除烏克蘭的武裝並擺脫它聲稱西方煽動的反俄民族主義。烏克蘭和西方說俄羅斯發動了一場無端的侵略戰爭。

路透社無法獨立核實 Kamyshin 和其他烏克蘭官員關於他們在戰時保持鐵路運行的成功的說法。

烏克蘭的 “生命線”

 56 歲的 Irpin 站站長 Helena Muskrivska 說，她在俄羅斯襲擊的首四天工作，幫助疏散了大約 1,000 人，並通過固定電話將當地的事態發展轉播到基輔。當變得太危險時，她將文件和設備帶回家。

Muskrivska 說: “當俄羅斯人進入車站時，我就在這裡。我不想面對面看他們”。

一群現任和前任美國和歐洲鐵路高管於 3 月成立了國際支持烏克蘭鐵路工作組，為鐵路工作人員的防護裝備、急救箱和經濟援助籌集資金。

該組織的主席、前美國聯邦鐵路管理局局長 Jolene Molitoris 說: “烏克蘭到處都有很多籌款活動，但沒有一個資金用於鐵路”; “鐵路是國家的生命線。”

該集團還旨在資助烏克蘭鐵路購買需求的重型機械、鐵路和其他設備。

Kamyshin 說，他正在與俄羅斯的襲擊賽跑，全天候部署工人和調度員團隊來修復軌道和重新安排火車路線。 “修復全部是用小時計，而不是用日數計。”

他說他和高級助手不斷走動，乘坐火車檢查烏克蘭周圍的損壞和維修情況，並補充說：“一旦他們破壊它，我們就會修復它”。

Kamyshin 說，他的首要任務是將糧食出口從烏克蘭南部港口轉向波蘭、羅馬尼亞和波羅的海國家，以幫助振興經濟。 他說，即使俄羅斯在他所謂的不可避免被打敗後，俄羅斯仍將是一個威脅。

他說: “這個瘋狂的鄰居會和我們在一起”; “沒有人知道他們什麼時候會再來。”

       So, Ukraine’s 22,000 km long rail is the main lifeline of the struggling economy and a passage to the outside world. So far, Moscow's effort to cripple it has failed, making the state-owned Ukrainian Railways a leading symbol of the country's resilience. Ukrainian rail workers have done a good job.