Russia launches missile attacks on Ukraine transportation infrastructure

 ISW:

Russian forces conducted precision missile strikes against five Ukrainian railway stations in central and western Ukraine on April 25 in a likely effort to disrupt Ukrainian reinforcements to eastern Ukraine and Western aid shipments. A series of likely coordinated Russian missile strikes conducted within an hour of one another early on April 25 hit critical transportation infrastructure in Vinnytsia, Poltava, Khmelnytskyi, Rivne, and Zhytomyr oblasts.[1] Russian forces seek to disrupt Ukrainian reinforcements and logistics. The Kremlin may have additionally conducted this series of strikes—an abnormal number of precision missile strikes for one day—to demonstrate Russia’s ability to hit targets in Western Ukraine and to disrupt western aid shipments after US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s surprise visit to Kyiv over the weekend. However, Russian precision strike capabilities will remain limited and unlikely to decisively affect the course of the war; open-source research organization Bellingcat reported on April 24 that Russia has likely used 70% of its total stockpile of precision missiles to date.[2]

Local Ukrainian counterattacks retook territory north of Kherson and west of Izyum in the past 24 hours. Russian forces continue to make little progress in scattered, small-scale attacks in eastern Ukraine. Ukrainian forces are successfully halting Russian efforts to bypass Ukrainian defensive positions around Izyum, and Russian forces are struggling to complete even tactical encirclements. Local Ukrainian counterattacks in Kherson Oblast are unlikely to develop into a larger counteroffensive in the near term but are disrupting Russian efforts to completely capture Kherson Oblast and are likely acting as a drain on Russian combat power that could otherwise support Russia’s main effort in eastern Ukraine.
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Russian forces continued shelling along the entire frontline in Donetsk and Luhansk and did not secure any confirmed advances in continuing ground attacks on April 25.[10] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces repelled Russian assaults against Koroviy Yar and Rubizhne and that fighting is ongoing in Popasna.[11] Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov claimed on April 25 that Russian forces have completely captured Rubizhne (after making a similar claim on April 20), though this claim is likely false.[12] The Ukrainian General Staff reported that elements of the 30th Separate Motorized Infantry Brigade of the 2nd Guards Combined Arms Army suffered heavy losses around Severodonetsk, confirming that Central Military District units previously active on the Chernihiv axis are fighting in eastern Ukraine.[13]
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Russia continues to be frustrated in capturing the holdouts at Mariupol, although it is consolidating its control of the rubble left behind by its attacks on the building and infrastructure of the city. 

Russia appears to be relying mainly on artillery and rockets for its recent attacks suggesting that its infantry has still not recovered from its previous failures in Ukraine.  Ukraine is getting heavy armaments from the US and Western Europe to help counter the Russians' planned offensive in the Donbas.  As ISW notes, the attacks on the rail lines may be aimed at slowing the delivery of that material to the Donbas region.

See, also:

US looking for Ukraine to create 'weakened' Russia to deter future invasions

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