The Russian writer in exile Vladimir Sorokin sees in the invasion of Ukraine the return drowning of the Russian world in the blood of Kiev, the mother city of ancient Rus’ where it all began.
Indeed, the family slaughter is also reflected in the more prosaic aspects of the conflict. From a logistical point of view, the struggle between the two countries is more like a duel between twins than a clash between radically opposing armed forces, and this despite the aid and modernization programs undertaken by NATO in support of the Ukrainians.
The new bombing campaign launched by Moscow in the west and center of the invaded country shows how the Russian general staff (GenShtab) has planned the offensive in the Donbass as if it were to eliminate the carbon copy of its logistics system, based largely on transport. on rail.
The raids are focusing on stations and railways involved in the supply and distribution of Western military aid, especially around Lviv, near the Polish border.
This choice may surprise those who are aware of Western logistics systems, which rely more on road transport. But Ukraine, like all post-Soviet states and with a past in the Warsaw Pact, inherited from Moscow a logistical-military system tailored to the needs of Soviet troops: in a huge country like the Soviet Union, rapid movement troops and supplies could only take advantage of the long railway lines that connect Siberia to the gates of Europe.
In recent months, much has been written about Russian railway troops and the damage caused by Belarusian partisans, who by damaging their country’s rail transport blocked part of the Russian supplies destined for the Kiev front.
The railway system, however, also plays a significant role in Ukraine, whose armed forces initiated a reform of the logistics system only in 2015. The programs initiated by the defenders, with the support of the Atlantic Alliance, mainly envisaged innovations from the point of view of brigade-level coordination and supply.
The first dimension concerns above all the creation of digital systems to be able to quantify the needs of the troops and to be able to plan the production and distribution of supplies; the second dimension, on the other hand, focuses on the final stretch of the supply lines, ie the transport by truck of supplies from the local brigade depots to the units engaged in the fighting.
The goal was to halve the refueling times, which in 2021 should have been reduced to 2-10 days from the order of the unit in the field. Therefore, even in the original plans, no downsizing of the railway system was foreseen, which however requires specific interventions. UZ, the state-owned railway operator, remained a pocket of inefficient Soviet economy until the eve of the war.
Even in the context of a general mobilization, UZ’s excellent technicians are not equipped with modern maintenance tools, likely slowing down repairs on damaged trains and lines.
The exploitation of the railway system for war purposes has obvious advantages: it makes sense to make the most of all available means of transport (including drones), many Ukrainian roads were littered with craters even before the outbreak of the war, and in a scenario in which the space above the country is still disputed, the defenders can afford to use a transport system that is otherwise very vulnerable and does not allow the use of less obvious routes.
In addition, being able to concentrate the trucks in the areas immediately close to the front allows a more rational use of the vehicles. Finally, Kiev can count on basic compatibility with countries such as the Czech Republic and Poland, which unlike the countries of the “old” NATO make a wider use of railways for military purposes.
The former delivered at least part of their Soviet-produced T-72s by rail, while after 2014 Warsaw had reactivated some of the cross-border lines between Poland and Ukraine, built with a “wide” Soviet standard rail, ironically installed to facilitate the supply of Soviet troops from East to West.
In addition, the integrity of the railway network is essential to try to remedy the economic damage caused by the blockade of the port of Odessa and the annihilation of Mariupol, two cities from which most of Ukrainian grain exports departed.
Exports in March amounted to four times less than in February, with obvious damage to Kiev’s budget and to the global grain market. Together with the mobilization of companies and private trucks to guarantee “critical imports” such as medicines, humanitarian aid and other civilian materials, strengthening these alternative logistical routes will be essential to ensure the stability of the Ukrainian system.
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