Ukraine rail boss keeps trains running
KYIV, Ukraine — The orders came from on high, from Ukraine’s president and one of his ministers: Get trains running again to the latest city newly retaken by our troops.
“So literally: tanks, then trains,” said Ukrainian rail network boss Oleksandr Kamyshin, recalling the presidential instructions he received as the southern city of Kherson was being liberated last week, ending eight months of Russian occupation.
Among bitter lessons that Ukrainians have had to learn in the nearly nine months since Russia invaded is that what’s here today can be destroyed tomorrow and that nothing in war can be taken for granted.
The national rail company proudly boasts that 85% of trains ran on schedule last month. Night trains that rattle across the country still welcome customers with hot tea and clean sheets in the sleeping compartments. As well as people, trains carry cargo, aid and gear Ukraine needs to fight. They also are the easiest way for world leaders to meet with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv, the capital that in war is unreachable by air.
All this despite thousands of missile, bomb and artillery strikes that have crumpled bridges, blown up tracks and, says Kamyshin, killed nearly 300 rail workers and wounded almost 600 others since Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24.
“We are a machine,” Kamyshin said. “We keep running.”
Kamyshin spoke to The Associated Press in an exclusive interview at Kyiv’s majestic train station, as air raid sirens howled as they so often do over the capital. He paid them no mind. He was just back from Kherson and, in a few hours, was due to head back there again. Sipping from a flask of tea, he showed no fatigue. An imposing, fit-looking bear of a man, his black T-shirt and fatigues were neatly pressed.
“I am about efficiency,” said the 38-year-old CEO. He worked in private enterprise before taking the reins in 2021 of the state-owned rail company, Ukraine’s largest employer, with 231,000 workers and more than 16,700 miles of track.
One of his rules, he said, is: “War is not an excuse.”
Another rule is that he won’t send rail workers up against dangers that he’s not prepared to face himself. His dash to Kherson as the first Ukrainian troops were entering the southern city involved considerable risks, with portions driving along dirt tracks that de-miners hadn’t yet cleared, he said. He posted videos and photos of the odyssey on Twitter, showing wrecked and derailed rolling stock, torn up tracks and an impromptu breakfast of eggs fried outdoors with a camping stove. “Boots on the ground is our way,” he wrote.