Kyiv – A Russian drone struck a passenger train in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region on Tuesday, killing at least five people. according to to the Kharkiv Regional Prosecutor’s Office.
“In any country, a drone attack on a civilian train would be treated in the same way, only as an act of terrorism,” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. he said in a social media post.
Oleksiy Kuleba, Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine he said in a post on social networks, according to preliminary information, the attack involved three attack drones carried out by Iran’s Shahed, which hit the engine and a passenger car, causing a fire.
“There were 291 passengers on board. People were evacuated as quickly as possible,” he said, echoing Zelenskyy who called the strike “a direct act of Russian terror against civilians. There is no military target.”
The Russian government denies that it routinely targets civilian infrastructure, but there was no specific reaction from the Kremlin or the Russian military to the deliberate attack on a train carrying civilians.
Emergency Service of Ukraine via AP 
Russia using Starlink to deadly effect?
Attacks on Ukrainian civilians and critical infrastructure have increased in recent months, and experts say Russia has adjusted its offensive capabilities to circumvent Ukraine’s air defenses.
Last year, Ukraine Air War Monitor the magazine express Ukraine’s drone interception rate drops by 18%.
Ukraine’s Deputy Minister of Community and Territorial Development Oleksii Balesta told CBS News on Wednesday that Russia is using larger drones in greater numbers, which is increasing the lethality of the attacks.
But according to the last one the report From the Institute for the Study of War in Washington, DC, Another reason for Russia’s deadly strikes is its use Starlink satellite systems to hit targets more precisely.
This week, Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski raised the issue with Elon Musk, whose company SpaceX owns and operates the Starlink satellite network. In a post on Musk’s platform XSikorski asked the American businessman “to allow the Russians to use Starlinks to target Ukrainian cities.”
good XMusk called Sikorski a “drooling imbecile” and Starlink’s terms of service “do not allow offensive military use, as it is a civilian commercial system.” Musk also pointed out that Ukraine uses the Starlink system for military communications.
Emergency Service of Ukraine via AP 
Two Ukrainian defense analysts said the Shaheds could have shot down the train – Russia’s weapon of choice amid its full-scale invasion – equipped with SpaceX technology.
“Russia has started using Starlink on other drones, and now it is also being used on Shaheds,” analyst Olena Kryzhanivska. said CBS News on Wednesday. “Yesterday’s attack was not surprising at all. It was expected.”
Serhiy Beskrestnov, a Ukrainian military analyst and drone warfare expert, said in a social media post on Wednesday that the moving train was hit by “Shahed with online control.”
“It was not the locomotive, but the center of the train,” Beskrestnov said in his post, accusing the Russian drone pilot of attacking a passenger car “intentionally and knowingly,” and specifically questioned whether Starlink was used.
SpaceX did not respond to CBS News reports that its Starlink technology may have been used in the train drone attack and by Russian forces to target civilian infrastructure in Ukraine.
Kryzhanivska said trains are easy targets for precision-guided Russian weapons.
“The territory of Ukraine is not equally targeted with air defense systems and mobile fire units,” Kryzhanivska said. “There is no protocol for what to do when a Shahed drone approaches a train. What can the crew do? Should they stop the train? Or keep moving?”
At least 11 people were killed and dozens injured in attacks across Ukraine on Tuesday night involving 165 drones launched by Russia, including one that hit a train in the Kharkiv region, according to the Ukrainian Air Force.