Losses in the railcar repair sector due to the situation on the rail transport market, in particular the surplus of railcars, may reach UAH 600 million in 2025, and more business involvement is needed to find alternatives, said Yevhen Shramko, head of the Repair and Production Division at Ukrzaliznytsia (UZ).
“At a meeting (with businesses and investors in August, initiated by UZ – IF-U), we discussed the forecast for the car fleet, which, unfortunately, is disappointing. New railcars are hardly being built due to the surplus. All this leads to the fact that, according to our forecasts, the losses of the railcar repair division will reach UAH 600 million by the end of 2025,” he said in an interview with Interfax-Ukraine.
The UZ representative recalled that transport volumes had decreased by 40%, and transport by the state-owned company’s railcars had decreased even more, by 58%. As a result, the volume of repairs, almost 70% of the cost of which is personnel expenses, also decreased by 55%.
Shramko noted that given this situation and the worsening forecast for the coming year, the company decided to go public and attract international partners, consultants who can help obtain grants or other funding to transform car repair enterprises without losing personnel and potential, as well as to attract as much business as possible for more efficient use of production capacities, which are currently redundant.
Shramko clarified that after the meeting, all participants were sent a questionnaire to obtain information about the real needs of the market, in particular, what facilities are needed, taking into account their location and infrastructure (electricity, gas, water supply).
“We only received 13 responses. To be honest, this is not enough. So we will continue to work with businesses, associations, and investors,” said the head of the department.
According to him, this is the first step towards transparent optimization and reorganization of excess production capacities that generate losses for Ukrzaliznytsia. Next, a list of facilities and proposals for international and local investors will be prepared.
“We are considering various options: leasing, public-private partnerships, and repurposing, and we want all of them to be implemented on a competitive basis,” Shramko emphasized.
He added that next year, during the proper gradual reorganization, it is planned to tackle the locomotive repair sector, where the company also has significant capacity.
“Given the current situation in the industry and the dynamics of transportation, a return to last year’s volumes seems unlikely at this point, according to our forecasts,” the director of the division emphasized.
Ukrzaliznytsia’s Repair and Production Division is responsible for the repair, maintenance, modernization, and manufacture of railcars, locomotives, and electric trains. It produces critical spare parts, reinforced concrete sleepers, technical equipment, etc. It has 11 enterprises, some of which are branches, and some are private joint-stock companies.
As reported, the volume of freight transportation by rail in Ukraine decreased from 180 billion t*km in 2021 to 113 billion t*km in 2024, and transportation by the company’s railcars decreased from 1,206,000 to 727,000. This year, these figures are expected to decrease to 106 billion t*km and 481 thousand, respectively.
These conditions led to a decrease in the volume of car repairs from 31,750 in 2021 (of which 20,150 were Ukrzaliznytsia cars) to 24,230 in 2024 (12,480), and this year a further reduction to 14,040 (3,960) is expected.
Zaporizhstal, a steel company in Zaporizhia, is investing over UAH 135 million in major repairs to heating wells in its hot rolling shop.
According to a press release issued by the plant on Thursday, the company is continuing comprehensive capital repairs of three groups of heating wells (four wells in each group) in the slab department of the hot rolling mill in accordance with its annual capital investment program. The total investment exceeds UAH 135 million.
“Today, Zaporizhstal is operating at only 75% of its capacity, but we are implementing the program for the maintenance and repair of production equipment at 100%. In particular, a major upgrade of the heating wells, which are an important link in the hot rolling process at Zaporizhstal, is currently underway. The quality of finished metal products, the mechanical properties of rolled products, and their compliance with standards and customer requirements depend on the stability of the temperature regime and the uniformity of heating of billets in the wells,” said Acting CEO Taras Shevchenko.
According to him, in addition to specialists from the engineering service, automation department, and central electrical engineering laboratory, specialists from the contracting organizations Etalonbudservis and MSC Prime are also involved in the overhaul. As part of the overhaul, worn refractories will be dismantled and replaced with new linings, in particular those manufactured by Zaporizhzhya Refractories. The total weight of refractory bricks and shotcrete mixture is more than 2,200 tons.
In addition, mechanical and power equipment, communications, and shut-off valves will be upgraded, about 900 tons of metal structures will be replaced, and hydraulic devices, automation, temperature sensors, etc. will be repaired and replaced.
Heating wells provide thermal preparation of ingots weighing up to 16 tons before rolling into slabs and further into thin rolled products. The overhaul of this equipment complex will significantly improve its reliability, energy efficiency, and minimize the risk of unplanned technological stoppages.
It is specified that this year Zaporizhstal will carry out a complex overhaul of key units of the thermal power plant – boiler unit No. 5, turbine generator No. 1, and turbo compressor unit No. 7. The plant will allocate about UAH 75 million for these purposes. Overall, despite the difficult economic situation, the capital investment budget for 2025 has been increased to UAH 1.1 billion.
Zaporizhstal is one of Ukraine’s largest industrial enterprises, whose products are in high demand among consumers both on the domestic market and in many countries around the world.
Zaporizhstal is a joint venture of the Metinvest Group, whose main shareholders are System Capital Management (71.24%) and Smart Steel Limited (23.76%). Metinvest Holding LLC is the managing company of the Metinvest Group.
In the first half of 2025, DTEK Energy invested approximately UAH 4 billion in repairs and restoration of thermal power plants damaged by massive attacks, which is more than in the whole of 2024, when UAH 3.6 billion was invested, according to the DTEK Communications Department.
According to its release on Friday, during this year’s ongoing repair campaign, a significant amount of work has already been completed, although there is still a lot of work to be done this year and next.
“Our energy workers are restoring not only equipment, but also confidence in the continued reliable operation of thermal power generation and the power system as a whole.
Electricity is the foundation of everything, and we are doing everything possible to ensure that there is enough of it even in the most difficult moments,” commented Alexander Fomenko, CEO of DTEK Energy.
It is noted that since the beginning of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russia has already struck DTEK’s thermal power plants 205 times. In total, last year, the energy infrastructure survived 13 large-scale attacks. Since February 2022, 56 power plant workers have been injured and four killed in shelling of DTEK Energy’s thermal power plants.
As reported, on the night of July 18, during the shelling of the Dnipropetrovsk region by Russian occupiers, a Ukrzaliznytsia train driver was killed and a DTEK locomotive driver was wounded.
The European Investment Bank (EIB) is considering providing Ukraine with EUR220 million for infrastructure restoration, including road and bridge repairs, the State Agency for Infrastructure Restoration and Development of Ukraine has reported.
According to a Facebook post on Wednesday, the possibility of financing reconstruction projects and the progress of their implementation were discussed with EIB representatives by the agency’s head Mustafa Nayyem and head of the project management team Vadym Nozdria.
As a reminder, in June 2023, the EIB allocated EUR 50 million of EU grant funds under the NIP platform for modular bridges for the regions of Ukraine most affected by the Russian invasion.
Police investigators exposed the scheme of stealing budget funds during the repair work of a kindergarten in one of the cities of Kharkiv region, reports the press service of the Kharkiv regional Prosecutor’s office.
“This scam in 2021 was organized by the mayor of the locality…. Director of the firm (which carried out repairs) and two of his employees … All four perpetrators are reported on suspicion on the fact of seizure of other people’s property by abuse of their official position, committed on a large scale by an organized group (part 5 of article 191 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine), and on the fact of official forgery, committed by an organized group (part 3 of article 28, part 1 of article 366 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine)”, – stated in the message.
The name of the city is not specified in the message.
According to the investigation, during the execution of works in the reporting documentation were entered false data regarding the cost of used construction materials and the volume of work. In particular, the documents included works that were actually performed by employees of the municipal utility company of the city Council.
Thus, the members of the group managed to seize almost UAH 400 thousand of budget funds.
The Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine (AMCU) fined four companies UAH 7.1 million for collusion in tenders for construction and repair of premises in the military and medical sectors, the agency’s press service said.
According to the report, LLC “Kraevid+”, LLC “Interval Bud”, LLC “BVK “Altera” and LLC “Prospect Budcenter” were fined for collusion in bidding for the construction of a training class of a military unit and a dormitory, repair of a unit training center and a gym for military personnel. In addition, the procurement included the reconstruction of the infectious disease department of Smelyanska city hospital and reconstruction of the Vyshgorod central district pharmacy.
The AMCU found that the above-mentioned companies financially supported each other during the procurement and synchronized their actions at the auction, involved the same person for the preparation of financial statements, management of bank accounts, etc.
In addition to the fine, the companies are prohibited from participating in public procurement for three years.
According to Opendatabot, the owner of “Kraevid+” (Chernihiv) is Fedor Filipov, “Interval Bud” (Cherkasy) – Igor Shchur, “BVK “Altera” (Cherkasy) – Dmitry Zaporozhets, “Prospect Budcenter” (Cherkasy) – Vladimir Diachok.
