The Russian Army Rolled an Armored Assault Train Into Battle in Eastern Ukraine

A Ukrainian drone struck the train near Udachne

Desperately low on armored vehicles and under increasing pressure in eastern Ukraine, Russian commanders have grown desperate. They’ve mobilized entire battalions of motorcycle troops. They’ve sent the walking wounded into battle on crutches. And now they’ve up-armored a train and deployed it as a crude, railborne battlefield transport.

On or just before Saturday, the Ewoks drone team—part of the Ukrainian 152nd Jager Brigade holding the line around Udachne, just west of the fortress city of Pokrovsk—spotted and attacked what Special Kherson Cat described as “an armored assault train.”

The armored train isn’t the first of its type. Armies have ridden armed and armored trains into battle for more than a century. The Russian army, long reliant on rails for logistics, equipped at least one captured Ukrainian train—the notorious Yenisei—for battle back in late 2022. To give Yenisei teeth, the Russians added a 23-millimeter auto-cannon and a platform for a BMP fighting vehicle.

There are at least three other modern Russian war-trains: Volga, Baikal and Amur.

It’s unclear whether the assault train the Ewoks struck around Udachne was armed. But it’s evident, from the attacking drone’s video feed, that the vehicle was wrapped in add-on metal plating likely meant to protect it from the very drone or drones that bombarded it this week. How much damage a first-person-view drone weighing just a few pounds can inflict on a locomotive that might weigh 100 tons ... well, who knows?

Big fat target

But if the Ewoks can hit the train once, they can hit it again. Up and down the eastern front of Russia’s 38-month wider war on Ukraine, the Ukrainians have a growing drone advantage. Analysts tallied 382 Ukrainian FPV strikes on vehicles in March, and just 154 Russian FPV vehicle strikes.

“Ukraine has pivoted to a drone-based defense,” wrote Andrew Perpetua, a leading open-source intelligence analyst. Producing more and better drones while also deploying better radio-jammers to ground Russian drones (except for fiber-optic models, of course), the Ukrainian military “negates” the Russian military’s “entire offensive potential,” according to Russian blogger Veteran’s Notes.

“Without a systemic solution to the problem of countering FPV drones, any maneuvers, especially in the offensive, will either be doomed to failure or the result will be minimal and with disproportionate losses,” the blogger added.

Under a sky clouded with explosive drones, it’s a waste of effort for the Russians to swap in an up-armored train for the usual crutches, scooters and motorcycles.

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