JSC “Ukrzaliznytsia” (UZ) transported over 1 million passengers between June 8 and 21, with the Kyiv-Lviv route (in both directions) proving to be the most popular among Ukrainians, where demand for tickets was three times higher than supply.
“To give more people the opportunity to travel, we scheduled additional trains,” UZ reported on Telegram on Wednesday.
According to the company’s statistics, the shortage on the Kyiv–Odesa route is 4.5 times the supply. Meanwhile, on the Kyiv–Kharkiv, Kyiv–Dnipro, and Kyiv–Vinnytsia routes, demand is twice the supply.
It is noted that the most popular train that departed last week was No. 705/706 Kyiv–Przemyśl, which carried 26,800 passengers.
In addition, from June 8 to 21, the average number of passengers per car was 692.
The number of passengers in children’s groups totaled 43,500, while 7,700 military personnel traveled via the special reserve.
“We understand the scale of the seat shortage, so we are trying to add trains to popular weekend getaway destinations whenever possible,” Ukrzaliznytsia emphasized.
As previously reported, Ukrzaliznytsia transported 472,900 passengers during the first week of June (June 1–7). At that time, it was noted that Ukrzaliznytsia plans to transport a total of 7 million passengers over the three summer months.
In early June, Ukrzaliznytsia told the Interfax-Ukraine news agency that this year’s summer passenger travel season would be more challenging than last year’s due to rising demand and a reduction in the number of railcars.
Ukrzaliznytsia has launched a new flagship train, the “Sakura,” which connects Kyiv and Uzhhorod and features new cars manufactured in Ukraine in 2026, according to a statement from the Ministry of Community and Territorial Development.
According to the Ministry’s press release on Tuesday, the new cars are equipped with security systems featuring surveillance cameras and include a number of passenger-friendly improvements: rechargeable batteries, additional amenities for traveling with children, inclusive design elements, and functional comfort features in the compartments.
The new flagship train departs on its maiden voyage from Kyiv to Uzhhorod today, April 28.
“In total, Japan has already provided Ukraine with over $15 billion in financial, humanitarian, and technical aid. “Within the framework of grant programs, we are coordinating four phases of emergency recovery totaling approximately $700 million and expect to sign the next phase for an additional $40 million,” Deputy Prime Minister for Recovery and Minister of Community and Territorial Development of Ukraine Oleksii Kuleba is quoted as saying in the release.
It is noted that with JICA’s assistance, Ukraine received approximately 28,000 tons of rails manufactured by Nippon Steel and dozens of units of specialized equipment, which allowed for the renewal of about 200 km of tracks on key routes.
The Ministry of Development added that 12 train cars feature cherry blossom petal branding.
In addition, passengers on the train will have access to an online portal about Japanese culture, architecture, and art, and will also be able to explore elements of Japanese cuisine, board games, and joint Ukrainian-Japanese cultural projects.
As previously reported, Ukrzaliznytsia received the first six of 100 new passenger cars ordered in 2025 from PJSC Kryukiv Railway Car Building Works (KVBZ).
The total contract value is approximately 6.5 billion UAH, and funding is provided from the state budget.
Deliveries are expected to continue in phases until May 2028, and 60 such cars will be ready by the end of 2026.
One of Ukraine’s largest grain market operators, Nibulon Joint Venture LLC (Mykolaiv), has expanded the scope of its river fleet cargo transportation on the Danube and opened a new logistics route involving Moldovan ports, the company announced on its Facebook page.
“After entering the markets of the Middle and Upper Danube in 2025, Nibulon opened a new route involving Moldovan ports. The first operation involved the implementation of a comprehensive logistics scheme: a voyage was completed along the route Izmail (Ukraine) – Galați (Romania), transporting 3,600 tons of metallurgical slag,” the statement noted.
According to the company, after unloading, the vessel proceeded to the port of Giurgiulești (Moldova), where it loaded 5,000 tons of rapeseed for further transport to Constanța, Romania. The total volume of cargo transported on the voyage exceeded 8,600 tons.
In addition, Nibulon implemented a two-way logistics scheme involving the delivery of grain from Izmail to Bulgarian ports, with a return load of mineral fertilizers in Serbia for transport to Moldova.
“This format allows us to minimize empty voyages and increase the efficiency of fleet utilization,” the company emphasized.
In total, by the end of 2025, Nibulon had transported over 110,000 tons of cargo via river transport. Its own fleet enables the agricultural holding to transport various types of goods, including agricultural products, fertilizers, slag, and metal, and to adapt routes to market needs.
Before the war, Nibulon cultivated 82,000 hectares of land across 12 regions of Ukraine and exported agricultural products to over 70 countries worldwide. In 2021, the grain trader exported a record 5.64 million tons of agricultural products. After the war began, the company was forced to relocate its headquarters from Mykolaiv to Kyiv. In addition to 23 grain storage complexes, Nibulon has its own road and rail transport capabilities, as well as a fleet built at its own shipyard. During wartime, this fleet continues to carry out river transport operations.
Nibulon is actively developing its own humanitarian demining unit to restore safety on leased lands and assist Ukraine’s agricultural sector. The company is a certified operator of mine action activities.
Analysis of the logistics situation in the Middle East and worldwide by the Experts Club analytical center as of March 2, 2026 (the situation is constantly changing).
According to NOTAM monitoring data, as of March 2, the picture is as follows (in parentheses — the duration of current restrictions, which is not a guarantee of reopening): Iran, Iraq, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Syria, Israel – “total” closure at the FIR/route level, Saudi Arabia – partial closure of corridors near the border with Iraq and in the Persian Gulf area, UAE – formally not “empty sky,” but ESCAT zones have been introduced and commercial traffic is effectively severely restricted.
EU regulators directly classify the situation as high risk for civil aviation not only over Iran, but also over neighboring countries where air defense actions, interception, and spill-over risks are possible.
The key effect is the shutdown or “semi-shutdown” of major Persian Gulf hubs connecting Europe, Asia, and Africa. Reuters and other publications describe this as one of the most severe shocks to civil aviation in recent years, with thousands of cancellations and mass passenger relocations.
The largest regional carriers (hubs):
1) Emirates: has temporarily suspended all operations to/from Dubai until at least 3 p.m. UAE time on March 3.
2) Etihad: all flights to/from Abu Dhabi suspended until 14:00 UAE time on March 3.
3) Qatar Airways: operations temporarily suspended due to the closure of Qatar’s airspace (resumption – after the regulator’s decision).
Large international groups and long-haul carriers are clearing their schedules en masse, as the “hole” in the corridor forces them to either cancel flights or fly long detours (longer, more expensive, with restrictions on crew working hours).
1) Lufthansa Group: flights to a number of destinations in the region suspended until March 8, with some restrictions on Dubai until March 4, plus an announcement that the group will not use airspace (the list includes Israel, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Iran; separately – the UAE until March 4).
2) British Airways: announces the cancellation of some flights and offers free date changes for London-Abu Dhabi/Amman/Bahrain/Doha/Dubai/Tel Aviv routes for the period until March 15.
3) Air India: suspension of flights to/from the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Israel, and Qatar until 23:59 (India) on March 2, plus some flights to Europe.
What is happening with air cargo
Here, the blow is twofold:
1) Belly capacity is disappearing: when the passenger network through the Gulf hubs “shuts down,” the holds of wide-body passenger flights, which usually carry a significant share of urgent cargo, disappear with it. This quickly pushes rates up and overloads the remaining freighter capacity.
2) Express chains and last mile in Gulf countries are disrupted:
1) FedEx: announces the suspension of flights to/from a number of markets in the region and the temporary suspension of pickup/delivery in Bahrain, Kuwait, Iraq, Qatar, and the UAE “until further notice,” warning of increased transit times in other countries in the region.
2) DHL Express: has temporarily suspended international shipments to/from Israel due to the closure of Israeli airspace.
For cargo, this usually means: more “transshipments,” more ground legs, shifting of some flows to alternative hubs, queues for capacity, and increased delivery times even where the skies are formally open.
In addition to countries with closed or restricted skies, the following are also significantly affected:
1) markets associated with transshipment through the UAE and Qatar (Europe – Asia – Africa),
2) India and South Asia (many destinations in the Gulf, plus onward transit),
3) ATP and European airlines, which have to cancel flights or reroute them on long detours, which affects the economics of the flight and punctuality.
In terms of scale, this already looks like a systemic network failure, rather than a local “detour zone”:
1) Thousands of flights have been canceled, and recovery is complicated by the fact that aircraft and crews are “scattered” around the world and need to be physically returned to the correct points in the network;
2) costs are rising across several areas: fuel (longer routes), airport charges for unscheduled landings, compensation/accommodation, and schedule changes; this is also reflected in the market through the reaction of carrier and tourism sector stocks.
3) Regulatory factors are amplifying the effect: EASA warns of high risk in the area, and the US has long had bans/restrictions on flights in certain FIRs (e.g., Iran and Iraq due to SFAR and security NOTAM).
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.
