Nicola Smith
Jun 03 2022
Former defence minister Ron Mark helps with aid effort in Ukraine
Longtime NZ First MP Ron Mark says he has been deeply affected by what he saw and experienced on the ground in Ukraine.
A lone cashier on Thursday sat in the ticket hall of Mykolaiv-Dnistrovskiy railway station.
Ivanna Bereza, 47, is used to the odd slow day in the small local stop 40 miles south of the historic city of Lviv.
But this time, the lack of customers carried an air of menace: on Wednesday night (local time), Russia hailed down missiles on a railway tunnel further down the line.
The attack weighed on Bereza’s mind. Having sold tickets for the national railway service for 16 years, her job has now put her on the invisible front line of a battle to sustain Ukraine’s economy and keep up the flow of arms from the West.
“Anything is possible, but we try not to think about it. We just keep coming in to do our shifts. What else can you do?” she said.
Russia’s strike on the Beskidy tunnel in the Carpathian mountains, a key link with Western Europe, marked the latest escalation in what the chief executive of Ukraine’s state-owned railways has called a “systematic” attempt to destroy them.
GETTY IMAGES
Staff juggle between selling tickets and keeping the flow of arms from the West going as Russia tries to take out vital infrastructure.
On Thursday, some passenger transport was cancelled as the authorities assessed the damage – but the tunnel itself was spared.
Maksym Kozytskyy, the governor of the Lviv region, told local media that five people had been injured in a barrage of four “enemy missiles” that struck the Stryi and Sambir districts in the Lviv region, western Ukraine, but most details of the attack remained shrouded in wartime secrecy.
“Any information or details apart from what was published is restricted due to the martial law and the overall situation in the country,” said a spokesman for Lviv region’s railways.
Official sources indicated that the injured had been railway workers. One unconfirmed report suggested that Verkhnie Synovydne, 40 miles south of Mykolaiv-Dnistrovskiy, may have been hit.
Still, Bereza and her four colleagues maintain a strong sense of pride about working for the state-owned network that has been crucial to keeping the country on its feet.
Boris Johnson, who travelled by train into Kyiv for his visit with Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president, hailed the railway workers as “iron people” keeping the country going.
The vast railway network in the largely flat country has proved invaluable from a military standpoint for supplying key Western arms shipments as well as assisting an exodus of refugees fleeing Russian air assaults and territorial advances.
Wednesday’s attack, which triggered a nationwide air raid alert at about 9:30pm, was the latest in a series of missile barrages Russia is firing at railways and other critical infrastructure like fuel depots, bridges and storage facilities as part of its wider strategy to disrupt the Ukrainian war effort and cripple the economy.
In April, more than 50 Ukrainian civilians were killed in a strike on a train station in Kramatorsk.
Ukrainian economists warned that the country has suffered up to US$600 billion (NZ$915 million) in economic losses from Russia’s invasion, including US$92 billion in damage to hundreds of factories, medical facilities, schools, bridges, places of worship, cars and warehouses.
Meanwhile, multiple strikes have hit western Ukraine with the aim of slowing down the rapidly expanding delivery of weapons from Nato allies to battles on the eastern front.
Britain will soon send sophisticated medium-range rocket systems, joining the US and Germany in equipping the embattled nation with advanced weapons for shooting down aircraft and knocking out artillery as Russian forces pound towns and cities in the Donbas region.
FRANCISCO SECO/AP
People fleeing from shelling board an evacuation train at the train station, in Pokrovsk, eastern Ukraine.
However, behind the high-profile pledges lies a logistical game of cat and mouse to safely direct weapons to the battlefields where they are most needed.
In recent weeks, Russia has used sea- and air-launched precision-guided missiles to destroy power facilities at multiple railway stations across Ukraine, with several attacks concentrated in and around Lviv, close to the border with Poland, that has been a gateway for Nato-supplied weapons.
Moscow has made no secret of its aim to deliberately attack railways, with Sergei Shoigu, the Russian defence minister, accusing the West of “stuffing Ukraine with weapons” and warning that any Western transport carrying them would be a legitimate target.
Analysts have suggested Russia is more inclined to strike the railroad logistics now that it is focusing on conquering territory in the east and southeast of the country, and commandeering rail transport is less important to its own redefined war aims.
‘Ukrainians are like bees: they can organise themselves’
Andriy Sadovyi, the mayor of Lviv, said of Russia’s tactics: “First, the Russians are trying to scare people. Second, they try to cut the lines of supply that comes from Europe and the West. And third, they want to cause as much destruction as possible.”
However, he said that Moscow had not reckoned with Ukrainian resilience in the face of great challenges.
He told The Telegraph: “Ukrainians are like bees. They are capable of organising themselves and reacting to sudden threats.
“The Russians do not understand one thing: our army is not just 4-500,000 soldiers on the frontlines. Our army is the whole population of 44 million and they can’t have 44 million rockets to kill everyone.”
However, behind the high-profile pledges lies a logistical game of cat and mouse to safely direct weapons to the battlefields where they are most needed.
In recent weeks, Russia has used sea- and air-launched precision-guided missiles to destroy power facilities at multiple railway stations across Ukraine, with several attacks concentrated in and around Lviv, close to the border with Poland, that has been a gateway for Nato-supplied weapons.
Moscow has made no secret of its aim to deliberately attack railways, with Sergei Shoigu, the Russian defence minister, accusing the West of “stuffing Ukraine with weapons” and warning that any Western transport carrying them would be a legitimate target.
Analysts have suggested Russia is more inclined to strike the railroad logistics now that it is focusing on conquering territory in the east and southeast of the country, and commandeering rail transport is less important to its own redefined war aims.
‘Ukrainians are like bees: they can organise themselves’
Andriy Sadovyi, the mayor of Lviv, said of Russia’s tactics: “First, the Russians are trying to scare people. Second, they try to cut the lines of supply that comes from Europe and the West. And third, they want to cause as much destruction as possible.”
However, he said that Moscow had not reckoned with Ukrainian resilience in the face of great challenges.
He told The Telegraph: “Ukrainians are like bees. They are capable of organising themselves and reacting to sudden threats.
“The Russians do not understand one thing: our army is not just 4-500,000 soldiers on the frontlines. Our army is the whole population of 44 million and they can’t have 44 million rockets to kill everyone.”
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