Russia builds 30km ‘tsar train’ barrier using over 2,000 freight cars in east Ukraine

Vladimir Putin’s army has built a 30km “tsar train” defensive barrier in eastern Ukraine, military experts said.

The Institute for The Study of War highlighted the barrier in the Donetsk province of eastern Ukraine.

“Russian forces appear to have constructed a 30km-long barrier dubbed the ‘tsar train’ in occupied Donetsk Oblast, possibly to serve as a defensive line against future Ukrainian assaults,” it said.

The barrier is reportedly constructed from over 2,100 freight cars.

The Washington-based military think tank also said Russian forces had made “confirmed advances” near Avdiivka, near Donetsk, and in western Zaporizhia province amid “continued positional engagements along the entire frontline”.

It also highlighted a report by CNN that Russia had recruited as many as 15,000 Nepalis to fight in Ukraine but that many of them had complained about poor conditions and lack of adequate training before their deployment to the “most active frontlines” in Ukraine.

Meanwhile, a minister said Ukraine is making thousands of “kamikaze drones” which can strike Moscow and St Petersburg. Digital minister Mykhailo Fedorov said Kyiv will produce thousands of long-range drones capable of deep strikes into Russia this year.

Ten companies in Ukraine were already making drones that can reach Moscow and St Petersburg, he added, as part of a war effort to produce a million of the aircraft this year.

Mr Fedorov spoke about the wartime drone industry he has championed in a interview in Kyiv in which he revealed new details about the sector, after a spate of Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian oil facilities in recent weeks.

“The category of long-range kamikaze drones is growing, with a range of 300, 500, 700, and 1,000km.

“Two years ago, this category did not exist… at all,” he said, as Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine is set to enter its third year.

Ukraine has trained 20,000 drone operators since it launched a programme to provide grants for military training in private schools at the beginning of last year, he said. There were 20 such schools, he added.

“We pay for every military person who comes to these schools.

“Now we have a plan to turn this into a larger state programme and separately to modernise, update several training centres and make them work at a high level,” he explained.

Mr Fedorov (33) has been at the heart of Ukraine’s effort to nurture private military start-ups to innovate and build up the drone industry as the war goes into its third year and Ukraine seeks new ways to fight back against well dug-in Russian forces.

The recent series of strikes on oil facilities, he said, reflected the government’s progress in rapidly deregulating the drone market and increasing funding for it, with the state acting as a venture investor.

In contrast with Russia where drone production is dominated by the state, the vast majority of manufacturers in Ukraine are private.

Mr Fedorov said only one of the 10 companies whose drones could fly as far as the regions around Moscow or St Petersburg was a state company. (© Evening Standard)

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