Ukrzaliznytsia (UZ) has added eight new international and three domestic connections to its new schedule for 2025–2026, which will come into effect on December 14.
“The new schedule plans to increase the number of seats during peak periods by 20% and offer a total of 2 million seats over the year,” according to a press release issued by the company on Thursday, which states that in less than 11 months this year, the company has carried more than 25 million passengers, almost half a million more than last year.
It is noted that in July-August, UZ tested a model of additional transportation by using daytime shuttle trains between their “main” flights, which on peak days provided more than 7,000 additional seats per day. This formed the basis for planning for 2026.
“Since our rolling stock fleet remains limited, we must become much more efficient in order to transport even more passengers. Therefore, the 2026 timetable is fundamentally based on increasing efficiency: new shuttle flights, high-quality acceleration, and more carefully thought-out connections,” commented Oleksandr Pertsovskyi, chairman of the board of Ukrzaliznytsia, on the changes.
Three trains are being added to domestic service: No. 47/48 (Kramatorsk) Barvinkove-Chop, No. 33/34 Kryvyi Rih-Ivano-Frankivsk, and the updated route of train No. 113/114 Kharkiv-Uzhhorod.
“The historic ”Bakhmut” route, which is the only train of social importance for Polissya and Volhynia, will be extended to Zakarpattia. This route should be seen primarily as an opportunity for residents of Zhytomyr, Olevsk, Sarny, Rafalivka, and other cities along the route to travel to the mountains (Slavske) and Zakarpattia (Uzhhorod), while maintaining reliable connections with Sumy and Kharkiv regions,“ commented the latest ”UZ.”
It was also announced that the Lviv-Vorokhta regional train, operated by a modern DPKr-3 diesel train, will run on a regular basis, and trains will run every hour between Lviv and Kyiv.
“This means that on the most popular route, Kyiv-Lviv-Kyiv, trains will run on a stable and regular schedule – every hour. The vast majority of trains will run year-round, with a few exceptions for the ”off-peak“ period,” the company explained.
As for international flights, the new schedule includes night train No. 7/346-347/8 Uzhhorod-Vienna, consisting of European railway sleeping cars, as well as trains No. 36/35, 32/37 Budapest-Nyíregyháza-Berehove, which will travel to Ukraine via the “Ferihéd” station (Budapest International Airport) and “Chop” also on European gauge tracks.
Moreover, an additional regional train No. 644/647 Uzhhorod-Zahony (via Chop) will allow passengers to transfer in Zahony to any of the regular trains of the Hungarian railway in the direction of Budapest.
Tickets for the new schedule for dates after December 14 are already on sale in the app and on the Ukrzaliznytsia website.
Based on the results of 2025, JSC Ukrzaliznytsia expects international passenger traffic to grow by 11% compared to 2024 – to 3 million passengers from 2.7 million, said Oleg Golovashchenko, director of the Passenger Company branch Oleg Golovashchenko, director of the Passenger Company branch of JSC Ukrzaliznytsia, at the VII International Conference “Production, Operation, and Repair of Rolling Stock” on Thursday.
According to his data, 1.8 million passengers were transported in January-September 2025. In pre-war 2021, the figure for international passenger traffic was 147,000, and in 2023, it was 2.3 million passengers.
As previously reported, Ukrzaliznytsia launched a daily train on the Kyiv-Bucharest route on October 10. In September 2025, the first section of the European gauge railway between Chop and Uzhhorod was opened in Zakarpattia.
At that time, the chairman of the board of JSC Ukrzaliznytsia, Oleksandr Pertsovskyi, noted that this project is an important stage in the development of the European railway network in Ukraine. According to him, in 2026, it is planned to electrify this section and start the construction of a European gauge railway in the direction of Lviv, which should be completed within two to three years.
In addition, during the Kyiv International Economic Forum (KIEF) in mid-October, Oleg Yakovenko, director of the strategy and transformation department of Ukrzaliznytsia, announced that the company, with European and state co-financing, plans to implement the Mostytska-Sknyliv project in the next two years and further develop the Lviv-Uzhhorod-Chop and Lviv-Chernivtsi-Vadul-Siret (Romania) corridors, which will allow Ukraine to begin restoring and realizing its unique geographical status.
Overall, the monopoly railway operator JSC Ukrzaliznytsia increased passenger traffic by 1.2% in the first half of 2025, to 13.52 million, which is 23% more than in January-June 2024.
Ukrzaliznytsia has changed the routes of some trains due to the need to bypass a section in the Kremenchug district that was hit by a Russian night attack. The company announced this on its Telegram channel on Sunday.
Due to damage to infrastructure in the Kremenchug district caused by shelling, trains No. 59 Odessa-Kharkiv and No. 8 Kharkiv-Odessa will follow a changed route via the stations Poltava-Kyivska, Romodan, Grebenka, Taras Shevchenko (Smela), and Znamianka. Passengers will be transported to the Kremenchuk station by bus.
Train No. 260 from Chop will run to the Kryukiv-na-Dnipri station, from where bus transfers are also planned. Similarly, for the return route, buses will be waiting for passengers near the Kremenchug station at 1:30 p.m., with a subsequent transfer to trains in Zakarpattia.
“To summarize: in the coming days, while the multi-component repairs continue, there will definitely be train delays in the region due to the detour around the affected section. We will also use buses to transport passengers to/from Kremenchug from the nearest accessible stations,” according to a statement from Ukrzaliznytsia.
In addition, the company reported that suburban rolling stock in Kremenchug was damaged by shelling, and reserve rolling stock has already been put into service on the routes. However, electric trains No. 6663 Kremenchuk – Znamianka (Koristivka) and No. 6664 Znamianka (Koristivka) – Kremenchuk will not run on September 7, 2025, due to infrastructure restoration work.
Ukraine from Monday, November 1, joined the Eurocontrol joint route charge system, which became the final stage of the incorporation of European practices in the field of air navigation and made it possible to introduce a European system of interaction in the air navigation sector in Ukraine, the press service of the Ukrainian State Air Traffic Services Enterprise (UkSATSE) has said.
“Ukrainian air navigation is now fully integrated into the pan-European system. The process that lasted 17 years has finally come to an end. It covered the large-scale adaptation of Ukrainian air navigation to modern world standards and technical procedures. This is a step forward to improve interaction between the state and business,” Minister of Infrastructure Oleksandr Kubrakov said.
According to him, the new system for setting rates and payments for air navigation services is transparent, understandable and convenient for airlines to use. At the same time, it becomes impossible to accumulate debts of air carriers for using UkSATSE services.
UkSATSE notes that now the collection of fees for air navigation services on the route in the airspace of Ukraine from Ukrainian and foreign airlines will be carried out through the Central Route Charges Office of Eurocontrol (CRCO).
“Technical integration gives concrete advantages to each participant of the aviation market. For airlines it is an open and standardized process of setting rates, their annual updating and convenient payment of bills. For UkSATSE it is a full coverage of its own expenses at the expense of rates and a guarantee of their full payment by airlines. For Ukraine – it is a certificate of the inflexibility of the European integration course in foreign policy,” Head of UkSATSE Andriy Yarmak said.
The first container train on the China-Kazakhstan-Russia-Belarus-Ukraine new route, which delivered 41 containers with refrigeration equipment, has arrived in Ukraine.
The press service of Ukrzaliznytsia said on Thursday morning that the train had been on the way for 19 days.
Work is underway on the frequency of the train running once a week. “If there is sufficient cargo, the frequency of running will be increased and the train will run according to a clear schedule,” the press service said.
Work on the route’s capacity filling continues, “especially in the direction of receiving subsidies from China for cargo, so that the conditions of cargo transportation are economically attractive for carriers.”
In addition, Ukrzaliznytsia is developing an online service to enable customers to order a container seat on a train and pay for the service online, similar to purchasing tickets for passenger trains.
Ukrzaliznytsia recalled that direct container trains from China to Ukraine began to run on the territory of four countries from June 8, 2020. During this time, 13 trains have already arrived.
Container traffic accounts for 2.3% of the total volume of cargo transportation by rail in Ukraine. Currently, 36 container trains organized by Ukrzaliznytsia run on a regular basis across Ukraine.
JSC Ukrzaliznytsia (Kyiv) and Polish Railways will launch a new international transfer route Lviv-Berlin (Germany) from December 15, 2019, the press service of Ukrzaliznytsia has reported with reference to head of the company Yevhen Kravtsov.
“Together with our Polish colleagues, we agreed to organize the so called Lviv-Berlin interchange route. Therefore, Ukrainians will be able to travel to Germany with only one convenient transfer, and we expect tourists from this country. This trip will take a little more than 18 hours,” Kravtsov said.
According to Ukrzaliznytsia, passengers traveling to Germany will be able to use train No. 89/90 Lviv-Przemysl and at the terminal station make a convenient transfer to train No. EC/EN 456/457 Przemysl-Berlin.
So, train No. 89 will leave Lviv at 16:20 and arrive in Przemysl at 18:19, then transfer to train No. EC/EN 456 Przemysl-Berlin, which leaves Przemysl at 19:57 and arrives in Berlin at 09:48.
On the way back, train No. EC/EN 457 Berlin-Przemysl leaves Berlin at 18:43 and arrives in Przemysl at 08:38. After that transfer to train No. 90 Przemysl-Lviv with departure from Przemysl at 10:18, arrival in Lviv at 13:45.
Train No. EC/EN 456/457 Przemysl-Berlin will also stop in Krakow, Katowice, Opole, Wroclaw (all Poland) and Frankfurt an der Oder (Germany).
In the ten months of 2019, Ukrzaliznytsia transported almost 479,000 passengers to European countries, which is 55,600 more than in the corresponding period last year.
