Russia has launched a campaign against Ukrainian trains, striking rolling stock deep behind the lines to sow panic, hurt the economy and batter logistics, Ukrainian officials say. The latest strike came on Wednesday near the town of Bobrovytsya, in Chernihiv Oblast, about 100 miles from the Russian border.

A train was reportedly struck by a Shahed type drone being targeted via a night vision camera. The War Zone cannot independently verify this at this time. Video emerging from the scene shows drones hitting the locomotive first, then the train cars, but it is unclear what kind were used in this attack.

“We are all very lucky to see the work of smart drones of the Russian Armed Forces on a railway train with Ukrainian Armed Forces equipment, as well as on fuel tanks in the area of Bobrovytsia, Chernihiv region,” the noted Russian The_Wrong_Side Telegram channel claimed Wednesday on Telegram. “The drones hit their targets on the move and evade Ukrainian aircraft covering the train, giving them no chance to shoot them down.”

The claim that Shahed drones were used was made by the Ukrainian Militarnyi news outlet. If accurate, it would be another technological leap forward for these weapons.

In March 2024, it became apparent that Russia installed cameras and cellular modems on a small number of Shaheds. That likely gave them aerial reconnaissance capability and the ability to send images back home via Ukrainian wireless networks.

Standard Shahed drones have no man-in-the-loop (MITL) or autonomous targeting capabilities and can only strike static targets.

It’s also possible that something else was used in this strike. Even a near-field attack using short-range drones controlled by commandos behind enemy lines is a possibility, but as it sits now, the prevailing narrative is that a kind of Shahed was used.

While the Russians claim they hit a military target, the Chernihiv Prosecutors’ Office said grain cars were among those hit during the attack. Prosecutors added that the strikes caused no casualties, but left 26,000 people in the area without electricity and delayed trains.

Regardless of what was used, the raid in Bobrovystya is part of an intensifying Russian effort to attack Ukrainian trains. Rail has been a key part of logistics for both sides. In addition, with its airports shut, Ukraine has been relying heavily on rail for international transportation. Visiting world leaders are often viewed exiting trains after arriving by air in Poland. You can see Princess Anne of England doing just that in the following image.

?? Princess Anne, yesterday, greeted at the train station in Kyiv, after making a surprise trip to Ukraine in a show of solidarity with children and families facing the horrors of the Russian invasion ?? pic.twitter.com/pNvgUY1PyZ

— Princess Anne & Sir Tim Laurence ✨ (@TheLaurences_) September 30, 2025

While both sides have been striking each other’s rail system since the all-out war began, Russia has intensified these attacks since the summer, unleashing a “massive wave” of long-range drone strikes, the head of Ukraine’s rail system told Reuters last week.

Oleksandr Pertsovskyi said the ramped-up drone attacks hit dozens of railway substations. The huge uptick, he said, is the result of Russia’s “dramatic increase” in the amount of long-range drones that Russia’s military-industrial complex is producing. As we have previously reported, Russia is moving to produce about 5,000 Shaheds per month.

“Previously, they simply did not have sufficient resources for a single combat drone, such as a Shahed, to hunt down a locomotive,” Pertsovskyi told the publication. “Now they can afford to use Shaheds to hit individual locomotives rather than strategic targets.”

Pertsovskyi downplayed the damage these attacks caused, saying Ukraine is quick to make repairs. He also noted that the overall use of rail has dropped significantly since the all-out invasion.

However, Oleksiy Kuleba, Ukraine’s minister of territorial development, said Russia’s railway attacks are “deliberately targeting Ukraine’s logistics and civilian infrastructure in an effort to increase pressure on the country’s population and economy,” Radio Liberty reported.

“The goal of such attacks is clear — to complicate passenger and cargo transportation, disrupt stable transport operations, and put additional pressure on people and the economy,” Kuleba said on September 17. The aftermath of some of those attacks can be seen in the videos below.

The results of the overnight Russian attack. This train was supposed to depart today to take passengers to Kharkiv. pic.twitter.com/3sx8DVPn4N

— Ukrainian railways || Укрзалізниця (@Ukrzaliznytsia) August 28, 2025

Today, Russia bombed the train station in Lozova, where I spent time in eastern Ukraine. This is what remains of the warming center/wifi spot we helped setup a couple years ago. Children were injured. There is no justification for this—just yet another evil attack on civilians. pic.twitter.com/z6oXALn2Cg

— Nate Mook (@natemook) August 6, 2025

The increased number of Shahed strikes on Ukrainian rail comes as Russia has boosted drone and missile attacks it has carried out against Ukraine.

Kyiv reported a 38% spike in combined Russian drone and missile attacks through September when compared with August, according to Ukrainian Air Force data crunched by ABC News.

“Ukraine’s air force said Russia launched a total of 5,636 drones and 187 missiles into the country through September,” the network reported. “That meant a roughly 39% increase in the number of drones and a nearly 20% increase in the number of missiles versus August.”

Meanwhile, Ukraine has also been striking at Russian rail. The ATESH partisan group on Wednesday claimed it carried out a sabotage attack on a train some 500 miles from Ukraine.

“Our agent set fire to a relay cabinet on the railway section between the settlements of Altyshevo and Alatyr in Chuvashia,” ATESH claimed on Telegram. “This caused a disruption in train traffic and delayed the delivery of ammunition and ‘Shaheds’ that the occupiers use to strike peaceful civilians. Previously, we had already struck this logistics chain in Mordovia.”

While ATESH published several photographs and a video that it says showed the results of this attack, The War Zone cannot independently verify the claim.

? “ATESH” claims it sabotaged a railway relay between Altyshevo and Alatyr in Chuvashia, disrupting train traffic and delaying the delivery of Shahed drones and ammunition from the Yelabuga factory. The group says this follows an earlier strike on the same logistics chain in… pic.twitter.com/o7wdGLciPK

— ?? Ukraine Frontline_Daily (@ukraine_frontup) October 1, 2025

As we reported in July, Ukraine has increased its attacks on Russian rail specifically to disrupt logistics. Russia relies heavily on trains to move troops and equipment. They are the backbone of Moscow’s logistics.

These railway strikes “have repeatedly targeted infrastructure along the rail line, which serves both industry and the supply of Russian forces, including those in Donetsk and Luhansk,” a well-known Ukrainian milblogger and reserve officer who goes by the pseudonym Tatarigami noted on X back in July. “The pattern points to a deliberate and systematic effort to disrupt the route.”

“Overall, our team notes a systematic approach with deliberate target selection,” added Tatarigami, founder of Frontelligence Insight, an all-source/OSINT/GEOINT analytical group. “The strike on the fuel-carrying train suggests Ukraine had detailed intelligence to time the attack precisely.”

6/ The substation wasn’t the only target that day. A nearby building at the railway station was also completely destroyed. Based on our analysis of its location, exterior, and visible equipment, the structure was likely a signal control station pic.twitter.com/vkGTCERplg

— Tatarigami_UA (@Tatarigami_UA) July 29, 2025

While we can’t say for sure what types of drones were used in the strike, for Russia, having Shaheds that can dynamically seek out targets, even moving ones, far from their launch points would be a tremendous advantage. It would open up scores of potential targets that Russian airpower, with its lack of robust long-range kill chains and no air superiority over Ukraine, cannot currently address. To do this, the modified Shaheds would have to feature man-in-the-loop control and the data connectivity to support it. This is usually done by a beyond-line-of-sight datalink. That is very unlikely to exist on these Shaheds, so using local wireless networks opportunistically could overcome this limitation in a patchwork manner. A drone acting as a line-of-sight relay between the attack drones and their controllers is another possibility, but doing that over at least 100 miles and in highly defended airspace would be a challenge.

Or, they could have a level of AI-infused autonomy on board, allowing the Shahed to hit targets of its own choosing, or at least search for and make attack runs on certain targets that are preselected. We discussed how AI-enabled Shaheds could have a massive impact on the war in a story we wrote last year.

“If these types of drones were equipped with the ability to look for their own targets, they could use their high endurance to hunt for targets of opportunity, not a dozen or so miles from their launch locations like current smaller MITL kamikaze drones, but hundreds of miles away. And they can do so with considerable time on station to execute a thorough search of a defined area. They could even return home to be reused if no target is found, if they have the range to do so, or divert to a secondary fixed target pre-programmed for attack prior to launch. Otherwise, they could self-destruct.”

“The ability would open up dynamic targeting deep in contested territory. For Russia, for instance, this would be a huge advantage as it has failed to gain air superiority over Ukraine and has very limited ability to hit non-static targets far beyond the front lines. The same can be said for Ukraine. It could hunt for and strike Russian vehicles deep in occupied territory, something it cannot do today because it too lacks air superiority and is confronted with the dense air defense overlay that sits atop the entire region. Flying these drones deep into those air defenses makes sense even if they do not complete their mission. A long-range kamikaze drone may cost thousands of dollars, but the high-performance surface-to-air missile that knocks it down will likely cost much more and would take far longer to replace… Such a capability could significantly suppress movements of forces far behind the front lines, as precision attacks on moving forces can happen literally anywhere at any time, and in significant volumes.”

We will have to wait and see if similar attacks by the same drone systems occur in the near future for a better idea of what kind of capability and operational frameworks are being employed.

Contact the author: howard@thewarzone.com