How Ukraine’s Trains Are Adapting to War – Foreign Policy

The casualties had come in from the east. A bearded man with a bloody bandage and metal fixator on his arm stared stoically at the sky as his stretcher was moved onto the platform. Another sat upright, clutching his documents with his remaining hand, the stump of a freshly amputated right arm hidden under a clean blue T-shirt. There was little conversation. More than a dozen injured passengers were met by ambulance crews, then came several who could walk, and then the train cars were empty. By the time the unloading was finished, over an hour later at 10 p.m., it was completely dark. Hospital trains were first introduced during the Crimean War in the 1850s running along tracks not far from the ones they traverse today. Since World War II, hospital trains have mostly faded from memory, at least in Europe. Their reappearance—now equipped with intensive care unit (ICU) rail cars—is one of the ways in which Ukraine’s national railway service, Ukrzaliznytsia, has adapted to war.

In the first eight months of the war, Ukrzaliznytsia evacuated more than 4 million people from front-line areas. The railroad’s leadership stayed constantly aboard moving command trains, both to avoid Russian attacks as well as to reassure its staff in far-flung regions across the country. A year and a half later, senior staff members are back in their offices in Kyiv but have had to pivot to a new set of challenges: continuing operations under fire while simultaneously trying to restore a sense of normalcy and innovating for the future.

An intensive care unit car on a hospital car—pictured in Kyiv on July 3—holds beds for five patients.

Wounded patients are offloaded in Kyiv on July 3.

But while the trains have adapted, the people aboard them are still grappling with a changed reality. “It’s really difficult to see wounded children,” said Albina Zharkova, a doctor and the project coordinator for a Médecins Sans Frontières hospital train for civilians. Zharkova said that after the Russian rocket attack on Kramatorsk station that killed 63 civilians last April, the train treated and moved 150 wounded patients. At least 30 of those patients were children.

Passenger trains are pictured in Kyiv on July 20, part of Ukraine’s national railway service, Ukrzaliznytsia.

At the time of Ukraine’s independence in 1991, six regional railways operated under the larger rubric of the Soviet rail system. They were re-amalgamated into one state-owned company, Ukrzaliznytsia. More recently, Ukrainian art photographer and former Ukrzaliznytsia employee Julie Poly published a book of photographs—also exhibited in the central Kyiv terminal in 2018—in which she described train passengers as “soldiers, business women, gigolo, and sport athletes, mostly girls, on their way to sport competition.” Train journeys united Ukrainians in an otherwise fractious and uncertain post-Soviet society.

Passenger traffic on the trains across the international borders has increased more than tenfold since the beginning of the war: both refugees fleeing, and many of them returning, as Russian attacks were repulsed near the big cities of Kyiv and Kharkiv. When asked about this during a series of conversations with FP in and around Kyiv’s central station recently, Ukrzaliznytsia’s CEO of passenger operations, Oleksandr Pertsovskyi, replied with the patience of an adult explaining an obvious fact to a child. “Well, you know, we used to fly.”

Passengers are pictured on the Kyiv-Warsaw overnight train west of Kyiv on July 20.

Ukraine’s airspace has been closed since the beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion. Although Ukrainian fighter jets and military helicopters continue to operate, civilian airliners and transport planes have remained grounded due to the continuing threat from Russian missiles. Ukrzaliznytsia has done its best to fill this vacuum, not just with hospital trains but also by reestablishing long atrophied connections with Ukraine’s neighbors. Previously, there was only minor passenger railroad traffic to Hungary, Moldova, and Slovakia, and none to Romania; they’ve now reconnected. What were two services to Poland have become twelve, and more are planned. When U.S. President Joe Biden wanted to visit Kyiv, he boarded a train for the 10-hour voyage each way from Przemysl in Poland—much longer than the Delaware-D.C. Amtrak that he once regularly and famously rode as a senator.

With a current workforce of more than 220,000, Ukrzaliznytsia remains the country’s largest employer, as it was before the invasion began. Thousands of workers either volunteered or were mobilized for military service, and trains, stations, and railroad depots have come under direct attack. Over 400 railroad workers have been killed, and others are already returning to civilian life with life-changing injuries.

Hennaidy Ovcharyuk, 54, is one such worker. He was close to retirement when the Russian army crashed across the borders last February. With 28 years under his belt as a locomotive maintenance worker for Ukrzaliznytsia, he became an essential worker and was exempt from military conscription. But when his son, Kirilo, 22, received his mobilization phone call, Hennaidy told him, “I’m going with you.”

Kirilo had been in the army for a year, and Hennaidy had served under the Soviet Union in the 1980s. Both received rifles and ammunition and were sent to the front lines near Mariupol, where they immediately went into action against the invading Russian forces. “War is always scary,” Hennaidy said. “But it’s you or them. You shoot.” For the first several weeks of the war, father and son fought side by side.

On March 13, the Russians advanced and seized their positions. As shouted warnings of “Sniper!” rang out, Hennaidy was shot first in the right arm and then in the back. His arm was shattered. Many other soldiers were killed and wounded. Hennaidy believes that he may have seen his son lying on the ground. “One guy walked with me for 5 or 6 kilometers, very slowly, for over three hours, one step forward and two steps back, to get me to safety,” he said. Kirilo has been missing in action since that moment.

Over 8,000 railroad workers are currently serving in the military, with others having been unable to work because of displacement or injury. “Assistance to wounded workers is new since the beginning of the war,” Olha Bespal’ko, Ukrzaliznytsia’s manager for social matters and the Iron Family Fund, explained by text message. “Wounded care is different from workplace injury,” Bespal’ko said, citing examples of mine-explosive injuries, craniocerebral injuries, amputations of limbs, and loss of sight and hearing. The Iron Family Fund, which was launched last July and funded by individual and corporate donations, supports wounded railroad workers financially and also organizes referrals to hospitals as well as psychological counseling. “The most difficult thing is to provide assistance to the families of dead workers,” Bespal’ko wrote, “because no amount of money or aid will ever bring back the person.”

The changing needs of passengers as well as staff have become enormous. “There are already approximately 30,000 amputations,” Pertsovskyi said. “It’s on the scale of World War I. We need accessibility nationwide.” Ukrzaliznytsia has purchased 37 rail cars that are wheelchair-accessible, but with more than 2,000 platforms and station stops, “it will be a lengthy process,” Pertsovskyi said.

A Ukrainian soldier who lost his leg in combat waits for a train in Kyiv on July 20 to return to his home—and ongoing rehabilitation—in Poltava, Ukraine.

The Kyiv-Pasazhyrskyi railroad station, the central station for Kyiv, was built in the 1930s in an architectural style combining Constructivist design and more traditional Ukrainian Baroque details. It’s filled with steps and stairs and noticeably lacking in ramps. Pertsovskyi was proud to point out the new elevators under construction—a “showcase project,” he said. Other changes since the war began include a smartphone app that allows passengers, for the first time, to review schedules and buy tickets without a computer or going to a station, as well as—with the help of UNICEF—a children’s play area in the main station. As Pertsovskyi said: “Over 1 million kids were evacuated, and many of them are returning with their families. The country will not survive without people coming back, and they won’t unless we provide a modern, attractive environment.”

To that end, there’s also a new gift shop in the station selling everything from Ukrzaliznytsia-branded T-shirts and hoodies to “victory sugar.” Pertsovskyi admitted that on board the trains before the war, “railway tea was really bad.” Ukrzaliznytsia asked tea companies from around the country to audition their wares, and a new, tastier brand from the Carpathian Mountains was chosen. Some of the proceeds go to purchase drones for the military. And, Pertsovskyi said, “we’re about to do a joint offering with Uber”—with Ukrzaliznytsia trains offered as options for users of the new Uber Travel feature.

It may seem surprising, even frivolous, to focus on such initiatives as Russian drone and missile attacks continue. An entire wall of glass windows at an office building across the street from the central station was smashed in an airstrike, and hospital trains unload their patients on the other side of a wall from the UNICEF children’s area. But Ukrzaliznytsia is central to efforts to convince the Western powers that Ukraine deserves continuing support and future EU and NATO membership. Not just Biden, but the leaders of just about every EU and NATO country, as well as other VIPs including pop and movie stars Bono, Angelina Jolie, and Sean Penn, have ridden the rails to Kyiv. Ukrzaliznytsia calls catering to this new class of passengers “iron diplomacy.”

Workers at Kevrz—the Kyiv Electrical Carriage Repair Plant—repair and rehabilitate rail cars from diverse origins, including Ukraine, Latvia, Poland, South Korea, and the Czech Republic. The plant is pictured on July 20.

To meet urgent needs, Kevrz (the acronym for “Kyiv Electric Carriage Repair Plant” in Ukrainian) has been working double shifts even as it remains understaffed. The plant is located in downtown Kyiv not far from the central station, and during a visit at the end of July, smoke and flames of acetylene torches filled the factory floor as workers clambered over stripped-down passenger cars. The cars’ varied origin stories reflect Ukraine’s tumultuous recent history. Some were built in the Russian-occupied Ukrainian region of Luhansk. Others came from Riga, dating from when Latvia was also part of the Soviet Union. Newer models were made in South Korea, the Czech Republic, and Poland.

“I need 300 more workers,” said Oleh Holovaschenko, the director of the plant. “Last year, we did more trains than in any other year before.” Between repairing war-damaged rolling stock, renovating the cars for hospital train use, and rehabilitating others to become wheelchair-accessible, the plant is operating at 140 percent of its normal capacity.

A railroad depot in Kupiansk, Ukraine, which sustained major damage, is empty of workers and inactive July 7 because it is too close to the front lines.

A worker cleans debris from the House of Science and Technology of the Southern Railways—which was destroyed by Russian bombings in March and August 2022—in Kharkiv on July 7.

Just like the assorted wagons, the plant’s machinery ranges from new plasma laser cutters made in Ukraine to decades-old Soviet lathes. Holovaschenko echoed the aspirations of his bosses: “My dream is that this plant is a point of innovation, equipping the trains of the future. After the war, Ukraine should receive a lot of investment and have a lot of new projects.”

Such optimism is set against continuing revelations of corruption, including the announcement in June by the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) that it was investigating suspected fraud in Ukrzaliznytsia’s fuel purchasing that had cost the company $5.6 million. Asked about the persistence of one of the worst negative perceptions of Ukraine, Pertsovskyi acknowledged that “for some, war is indeed an opportunity to make money.” Still, he maintained the overall trajectory was positive. “Things do get exposed, even at the very top level. Ukrainian society has very little tolerance for corruption now.”

Left: Collectible Railway Sugar products with the slogan “Trains to Victory” are sold at the gift shop in Kyiv’s central station. Center: After Russia’s invasion last year, Ukrainian Railways changed its mile marker system to cite the distance from Kyiv instead of the distance from Moscow. The new origin point in Kyiv is pictured on July 3 in the city’s central station. Right: A mockup of a train schedule board is pictured in Kyiv’s central railroad station on July 3, listing the names of cities occupied by Russian forces. Photos by ALAN CHIN.

Late one night, sitting in the back of a van while entertaining executives from the Czech manufacturer Skoda, from whom Ukrzaliznytsia will buy new high-speed trains, Pertsovskyi took a moment to reflect on the last year and a half of war. “I kind of miss those first days. … Everything was black and white; there were no politics for the first months. Evacuation trains to Lviv were supposed to come back empty, but in an hour, they were loaded with supplies. People showed extreme unity and self-organization. From common people to high officials, we were focused on survival.” He broke away to attend to his constantly ringing and pinging mobile phone. He sent a text later. “We had an emergency in Kharkiv with one of my train attendants killed in action and another one—in a critical state.”

As for Hennaidy Ovcharyuk, he has returned to his home in Lozova, near Kharkiv, after spending over a year in and out of hospitals undergoing multiple surgeries for his mangled right arm. Several times, the army tried to reassign him to non-combat duties, but complications ensued. He continues to take painkillers, especially when it rains or the weather changes, and jokes that he’s now a “built-in weather forecaster.”

Smoke rises from the front lines near Kupiansk, Ukraine, on July 7.

“When railway workers become disabled,” Bespal’ko wrote, “an integral component is an empathic attitude: We talk to them, listen to and respect their requests, wishes, and problems. The best result is the happiness of employees who were able to return to work despite their disabilities. These people didn’t believe that the company would be able to find a job for them.”

Ovcharyuk has received psychological counseling as well and says that he feels better after these sessions. He went back to work at Ukrzaliznytsia in May. With his arm still in a sling, he’s not able to do any heavy lifting but is performing clerical duties in a small office next to the locomotive shed in the Lozova depot. “I can’t sit at home doing nothing. It’s good to see people,” he said. “But I keep thinking about my son.”

Additional reporting by Ievgeniy Yakovenko.