Five Ukraine railway stations come under attack

Lviv: Russian strikes have hit five railway stations in central and western Ukraine, BBC reported.

One of those hit was Krasne, east of Lviv. Maksym Kozytskyi, head of the Lviv region, has posted on his Telegram channel that a missile hit an electrical substation there.

Footage posted online shows a thick black plume of smoke rising from the site.

Authorities here have announced a number of Russian missile hits on western and central Ukrainian stations.

The head of the central Vinnytsia region has announced on Telegram that there are dead and wounded there, after strikes on Zhmerynka and Kozyatyn stations.

Serhiy Borzov did not say how many casualties there were but said the Russians were trying to hit "critical infrastructure", BBC reported.

Ukrainian railways have cancelled or diverted trains in the west and centre after the attacks.

Russia's timing to strike railways in the centre and west of Ukraine hours after the US secretary of state and defence secretary left Kyiv by train back to Poland is almost certainly designed to be another warning shot from Moscow, BBC reported.

Five stations were hit by missiles, including one in Krasne, near Lviv, where a facility handling the power supply to overhead lines was struck. There are reports of injuries. The railway lines are integral to Ukraine's war effort, moving troops and military hardware in and out of Poland, which is Nato's logistics hub.

Targeting the stations appears to be an attempt to degrade Kiev's military supply route.

But it's also chilling for the refugees who continue to use train lines to escape the renewed Russian offensive in the Donbas. The station in the eastern city of Kramatorsk was hit earlier this month, killing dozens fleeing, BBC reported.