Since mid-summer, Russia has intensified its strikes on Ukraine's railway facilities, averaging six to seven "Shahed" drones almost every night. This was reported by the head of JSC "Ukrzaliznytsia", Oleksandr Pertsovsky, in an interview with Reuters.

"The main goal of the aggressor is to instill fear among the population and to inflict damage on the economy as a whole," stated Pertsovsky.

According to him, these attacks are not specifically aimed at military cargo. "These are essentially strikes on civilian infrastructure," he added.

Pertsovsky also noted that the strikes affecting dozens of substations are related to an increase in the number of long-range drones produced by the Russian military-industrial complex.

"Earlier, they simply did not have the resources to use one combat drone like the 'Shahed' to hunt locomotives. Now they can afford to target individual locomotives," he emphasized.

The head of Ukrzaliznytsia noted that since mid-summer, Russia has been continuously attacking electrical substations and other railway infrastructure, using six to seven 'Shahed' drones almost nightly.

"They systematically disable one substation after another to halt passenger train operations," Pertsovsky said. Recent examples include attacks on the Lozova, Synelnykove, and Kozyatyn stations.

However, despite the ongoing attacks, the Ukrainian railway is still managing to handle the load, and the transit of military cargoes remains unaffected.

"This is a marathon... They (the Russians) hit us, we recover. They hit us, we recover," Pertsovsky described the situation.

According to World Bank estimates, about 30% of Ukraine's railway is currently in a state of "damage-recovery".

In a previous comment to the agency, Pertsovsky stated that the Russians are trying to destroy key railway hubs. Notably, on September 17, the railway infrastructure suffered an attack from the Russian army, causing delays for several trains.