The Russian armoured train Yenisei is an armoured train currently in use by the Russia in their ongoing invasion of Ukraine in 2022. According to Ukrainian sources, Yenisei was constructed out of parts stolen from Ukrainian Railways in the Kharkiv region.
Specifications and details
The train is protected by armoured plates of unknown thickness and is designed to transport materials, to restore and demine tracks that are damaged, and for engineering reconnaissance. However, the train also has a ZU-23-2 and a mounted BMP-2, and thus is also suspected of being prepared for combat operations. Russian sources dispute Yenisei's role as a combat vehicle, claiming rather that the train is used for humanitarian purposes such as the delivery of water, medicines and food for civilians in Donbas, and evacuating over a thousand people from the combat zones.
The train is currently made up of at least two ChME3-type locomotives plus eight wagons (two of which are platforms from the BMP-2 and ZU-23-2). On a whole, Yenisei is made up of two empty platform wagons for cargo, logistical and construction purposes at the front and end of the train, a platform wagon mounting the BMP-2 as the 'head', followed by an anti-air wagon mounting the ZU-23-2 gun alongside an enclosed cabin with six machine-gun slits, the first ChME3-type locomotive, a machine gun wagon with more gun slits, a goods wagon, another machine-gun wagon and the second ChME3-type locomotive. In terms of length, each wagon is made from the standard United Wagon Company Sgmmns 40’ flat car, which is 40 feet long. Combined, Yenisei is a 131 meters long.
Like Volga, this is not the first armoured train used in the Russo-Ukrainian War, as a few other armoured trains were recorded transporting logistical and military goods through Crimea in March 2022.