In the early days of a full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, a lightning-fast capture of Kyiv was planned. However, railway saboteurs stepped up in the Belarusian direction, wreaking havoc on the logistics of Russian troops, writes The Washington Post.

Belarusian railway partisans

According to the newspaper, informs Railway Supply magazine, literally from the first days of the invasion of Belarus, a secret network began to work, which included railway workers, hackers and former members of the security forces.

Due to their actions the food, fuel and ammunition supply chain was completely paralyzed for several days.

They said that the attacks were simple but effective – targeting signaling systems essential to the operation of the railways.

As a result, the trains were idle for days on end, which forced the Russians to replenish supplies by road. This, in turn, led to the well-known multi-kilometer columns in the north of the Kyiv region.

“Given Russia’s dependence on trains, I’m sure it contributed to some of the problems they had in the north. This slowed down their ability to move. They could not move further into Ukrainian territory and cut off their supply routes because they had to rely on trucks, ”said Emily Ferris, a research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute in London.

Belarusian railway partisans

According to Belarusian activist Yury Ravavoy, sabotage on the railway bought time for the Armed Forces of Ukraine. “I can’t say that we were the most important factor, but we were an important brick in the wall,” he said.

Earlier, the KGB detained three Belarusian heroes who disabled the railway. The publication writes that the railway war is still taught in the schools of Belarus as the most successful tactics of partisans during the Second World War.

However, the current partisans sought to avoid casualties, so they focused on damaging equipment.

“We did not want to kill either the Russian military or the Belarusian machinists. We used a peaceful way to stop them,” Ravavoy added, without specifying exactly how the partisans committed sabotage.

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