Russia’s military response to the situation in Kursk depends on its outdated railway system. Ukraine can strengthen its positions on enemy territory by targeting the railways used by the Russian army for supply.
After destroying several bridges in Kursk, Ukraine is now aiming to exploit another weakness of the enemy.
Russia relies more on railways for transporting troops, equipment, and supplies than Western armies do on road transport. Russian units lack the organic capability to operate far from railways.
For Moscow, assembling a force of around 30,000 troops from all over Russia, according to Ukrainian estimates, to repel the Ukrainian invasion in Kursk would congest the region's railway stations and create a shortage of locomotives, as shown in an analysis published by Business Insider.
Evidence of disrupted railway traffic in the Kursk area is the fact that BelZhD, the Belarusian railway workers' union, announced on August 12 that the Russian railway authority requested their Belarusian counterpart not to send trains to stations on the Orel-Kursk lines. This effectively cuts off railway connections between the two countries.
The redirection of trains from Kursk has severely impacted railway traffic throughout Russia. "The Ukrainian incursion has caused a serious disruption to railway operations, paralyzing key routes across the country," according to an article from August 19 on the European business news site IntelliNews.
It is unclear how overloaded the Russian railway network can become. "We have seen reports from Belarusian railway workers detailing how Russian Railways have taken over rail traffic in southwestern Russia to prioritize military logistics in response to Kursk. We have not been able to independently verify this information, but I have no reason to doubt it," said George Barros, a Russia expert at the Washington Institute for the Study of War, to Business Insider.
Russia's Weaknesses
The Russian railway network already had issues before the Ukrainian operation in Kursk.
Russian military bloggers warned that Western sanctions on exports to Russia had affected maintenance and led to a shortage of locomotives. Railway officials were threatened with severe sanctions in case of problems, and the Russian railway authority admitted in 2023 to a maintenance crisis, with parts shortages causing the cancellation of 42,600 trains last year.
So far, Kiev's hopes that Russia would move troops from the eastern and southern fronts to the Kursk region have been dashed. Despite the humiliation of losing part of its territory, Russian troops continue to attack hotspots like Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region.
Instead, Russia hastily deployed a mix of recruits and internal security forces from the Rosgvardiia National Guard, Ministry of Internal Affairs, and FSB intelligence service as part of what the Kremlin calls an "anti-terrorist operation" under FSB command.
However, these troops also need to be transported from Russia, and the road solution would involve an extraordinary number of vehicles. Therefore, Russian forces in Kursk will require more railways, which depend on a limited number of railway bridges.
"Many such bridges are easy to identify," said Barrow, who identified four vital bridges in the Kursk, Orel, and Bryansk regions.
Other experts say that the Russian railway system is already facing major issues that need to be addressed. "The Ukrainian incursion could force Russia to reallocate logistical routes to the Kharkiv front through neighboring regions. This will extend the time needed to supply materials from the Leningrad and Moscow military districts, but it is unlikely to escalate," said Callum Fraser, a Russia expert at the Royal United Services Institute in the UK.
Kiev has obtained data on the Russian railway system, which will help disrupt railway operations.
"Russia's digitization of its railway infrastructure, including aspects like its integrated infrastructure management system, means that Ukraine has been able to access data on arms shipments from a captured station. There may be more vulnerabilities in this system that Ukraine could exploit," said Fraser.
ATACMS Missiles Can Destroy All Connecting Bridges
Ukraine claims to have occupied 1,300 square kilometers of Russian territory and now holds an advanced base in Russia that it can use as a "catapult" for launching missiles and drones over longer distances.
The Kursk region is crossed by nearly 1,000 rivers and streams. Ukrainian air forces have already destroyed several bridges over the Seim River, east of Kursk.
Barros believes that Ukraine could seriously disrupt railway traffic and the Russian army's supply logistics system if the United States were to grant permission for Kiev to use ATACMS missiles against targets in Russia.
"The Russian railway network in the Bryansk, Kursk, Oryol, Belgorod, and Voronezh regions has several natural chokepoints where railway lines cross bridges to span rivers. It would be excellent if, for example, Ukrainian forces could affect the Russian forces' ability to use the railway in this sector by using ATACMS to destroy these railway bridges," said Barros.
T.D.