Something Happened On The Railway In Southern Ukraine Last Week
Fog of war and the offensive against Russian rail logistics
“The Defense Forces of Southern Ukraine hit a locomotive with a column of enemy equipment” last Friday, according to a Facebook post by that command. “The enemy's losses amounted to 13 tanks and more than a hundred units of armored and automotive equipment” — namely, trucks and cars used for frontline logistics.
A Russian Telegram post later claimed that drones deployed from a hatch in a grain car on the train, much as they deployed from container trucks during OP Spiderweb, to destroy the locomotive and the vehicles it was hauling.
It was a great story, but was it true? Some outlets withdrew their initial reporting as they awaited more information to confirm the detials, as something did not add up for many people.
However, something did apparently happen near the hamlet of Zorya, north of Verkhny Tokmak in Zaporizhzhia Oblast. A Ukrainian OSINT Telegrammer has found imagery of what appears to be damage to the track, as if something was destroyed at that spot, but the imagery is too low-resolution to learn any details.
“Poor quality images and SAR [synthetic aperture radar] images show that the consequences of the damage are indeed visible on the track, but nothing more,” says Offical Dnipro. “So we are waiting for better quality images to confirm.”
The geolocation in the imagery is also well within drone or HIMARS range of Ukrainian forces in Zaporizhzhia. An OP Spiderweb-style operation seems unnecessary in that tactical context. If Russians are spreading rumors in the wake of a real operation against a train, then it speaks to how effective the psychological blow of OP Spiderweb has been.
As I explained this week in the post linked below, the Ukrainians seem to have very specific and timely intelligence of enemy train movements lately. I outlined a few ways in which they may have developed means of exploiting the signalling infrastructure of Russian railways.
As mentioned above, however, satellite SAR technology can provide an additional layer of observation to make other intelligence streams more useful. On that note, Japan has begun sharing high-resolution geospatial intelligence, including SAR, with Ukrainian military intelligence (HUR).
Institute for Q-shu Pioneers of Space (iQPS), affiliated with Kyushu University, “currently operates five satellites, with more launches planned by the end of 2026.” Finland, Germany, and Italy also provide some SAR imagery.
While these intelligence streams do not fully compensate for the American satellite intelligence that Ukraine has lost, they are enough to build a coherent picture of Russian train movements, among other things.
It remains to be seen just what actually happened at the Zorya railway bend. It is clear however that Ukraine continues to track and strike Russian locomotives, especially along the southern ‘land bridge’ route through Zapporizhzhia. More on this story as it develops.
How Ukraine Attacks Russian Logistics
It was almost lost in the news about Operation Spiderweb this Sunday, then forgotten in the strike on the Kerch Strait Bridge on Monday, that two Russian train bridges also collapsed, derailing a freight train and a passenger train. Altogether, seven riders were killed and at least 79 more civilians were injured. Russian officials blamed both collapses, which took place a few hours apart, on explosions. Both rail lines were put out of service.