On the night of April 24th or the morning of the 25th, Russian cruise missiles destroyed a total of six traction substations within the Ukrainian rail system, paralyzing electric train traffic (and thus, all rail traffic) in western Ukraine.
No easy repair.
Traction substations house transformers that take power from the grid and convert it to the voltage, amperage, and frequency needed to drive electric train motors through overhead lines or (more often) third rails.
As you can see from this map, the strikes were clearly intended to paralyze rail traffic throughout roughly the westernmost one-third of the Ukraine from the Polish border on east
These strikes will stopa very large section of the Ukraine’s rail system from transporting NATO country “donations” into the Ukraine and eastwards to the front lines.
Moreoever, this hardware is now stuck on the rails, not moving, and an easy target for still more cruise missiles, SU-25 rockets, and tank-killing Mi-24 Hinds.
This also stops the rail transport of food, fuel, and other things that people need to live — from the AFU units pinned down in the east on west where land imports, exports, and passengers travel.
It’s been about 60 days since the invasion. Russia clearly wanted to leave the infrastructure alone, but was left with no choice.
Up to 30 per cent of Ukraine’s infrastructure, including dozens of railway bridges, has been destroyed in the two-months course of the war in Ukraine. The damage done so far is worth around about 100 billion US dollars. The Ukrainian Minister of Infrastructure Oleksander Kubrakov stated last week that with very hard work, recovery is possible … in two years.
“Virtually all parts of our transportation system have suffered in one way or another,” said Kubrakov. He also mentioned that 300 road bridges and dozens of railway bridges have been blown up. In addition, at least 8000 kilometres of roads must be repaired or reconstructed.
Who’s in charge of this insanity?
Zelenskyy is just the Ukrainian puppet while Corrupt Joe Biden is just the American puppet.
And, clearly, Jake Sullivan and Vitoria Nuland are willing to fight to the last Ukrainian. The orders are Salingrad 2.0 – no retreat, no surrender coming from … Obama?
While, clearly, Russia’s perspective at this point is “you can have it your way.”
Ukraine is on track to being destroyed.
At least one-third of Ukraine (the Russian speaking) will go to Russia, and the rest will become wasteland, albeit one with a number of severely under-maintained and overstressed nuclear power plants.
While several million more refugees will hit Europe at the worst possible time.
And Europe will be short food, gas, and oil this fall and winter.
Econophysics2020 