KYIV: Russian strikes on Wednesday targeted railways, shipping and other civilian transport infrastructure in Ukraine, killing at least two people and raising concerns over the safety of vital transport links, Ukrainian authorities said.
Authorities in Kyiv said targets were hit in the capital and surrounding areas. A 42-year-old man who was wounded in a strike on a petrol station later died in hospital.
A railway worker returning home after his shift was also wounded by shrapnel. Ukrainian Railways chief Oleksandr Pertsovsky said Kyiv’s railway network was “under fire” and urged passengers using the city’s central station to exercise “maximum” vigilance.
Ukraine’s state-run railway system has continued operating throughout Russia’s full-scale invasion, which began in February 2022, and has played a vital role in maintaining transport links across the country.
Pertsovsky said earlier this month that Russian strikes on the railway network were worsening each week. One previous attack struck a train carrying diplomats near the Polish border.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accused Russia of seeking to “cripple the economy and destroy people’s lives”. In the southern port city of Odesa, the captain of a cargo ship was killed in a Russian attack, according to regional authorities.
Odesa regional governor Oleg Kiper said the Ukrainian captain was in charge of a cargo ship sailing in the Black Sea under the flag of Antigua and Barbuda.
Turkiye’s IMEAK Chamber of Shipping said at least 226 civilian and commercial ships had been hit in the Black Sea since the conflict began. It said 163, or about 70 per cent, of the attacks occurred during the first eight months of this year.
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Turkiye, whose ships have increasingly been affected by the fighting, has proposed to Russia and Ukraine that attacks on civilian shipping be halted. However, the two sides have not taken action on the proposal.
“The recent attacks on commercial ships in the Black Sea are unacceptable, regardless of who is responsible,” Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told the UN General Assembly in New York on Tuesday.
Russia’s Defence Ministry said its latest strikes on the Kyiv region targeted a warehouse and a business involved in producing drones for Ukraine’s armed forces. It said similar facilities were struck in the Odesa region, along with a ship carrying military cargo.
