Russian strikes hit railways, shipping, transport in Ukraine

Ukraine on Wednesday accused Russia of increasing its targeting of civilian transport infrastructure after renewed attacks on petrol stations, shipping and railways left at least two dead.

The authorities in Kyiv said targets were hit in the capital and the surrounding area and a 42-year-old man wounded in a strike on a petrol station died in hospital.

A railway worker returning home after his shift was wounded after being hit by shrapnel.

Ukrainian Railways chief Oleksandr Pertsovsky said Kyiv's rail network was "under fire" and urged "maximum" vigilance from passengers using the city's central station.

Ukraine's state-run railways have kept operating and been a lifeline since the start of Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022.

But Pertsovsky told AFP earlier this month that strikes were worsening every week, after one attack hit a train used by diplomats near the Polish border.

President Volodymyr Zelensky has accused Russia of trying to "cripple the economy and destroy people's lives".

In Ukraine's southern Black Sea port of Odesa, the captain of a cargo ship was killed in a Russian attack -- part of a wave of strikes from both sides on commercial vessels designed to hit export revenues.

The head of the Odesa region, Oleg Kiper, said the Ukrainian captain was in charge of the vessel, which was sailing on the Black Sea under the flag of Antigua and Barbuda.

At least 226 civilian and commercial vessels have been hit on the Black Sea since the start of the conflict, Turkey's IMEAK chamber of shipping said.

Seventy percent -- or 163 attacks -- took place in the first eight months of this year.

Turkey, whose vessels are increasingly in the firing line, has sent a proposal to Russia and Ukraine to end strikes on civilian ships but the two foes have failed to act on it.

"The recent attacks on commercial vessels in the Black Sea are unacceptable, regardless of who is responsible," Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told the UN General Assembly in New York on Tuesday.

Russia's defence ministry said its latest attacks on the Kyiv region hit a warehouse and business linked to the production of drones for the Ukrainian armed forces and similar sites were hit in the Odesa area, as well as a vessel delivering military cargo.