Kyiv, August 1, 2014 – “Due to a transportation decrease during the last 7 months the railways have got 1.6 billion hryvnias less. If the situation in the country won`t be stabilized, the industry will lose about 3 billion hryvnias till the end of the year”, – said Mykola Topchiev, Head of the Analytical Department of “Ukrzaliznytsia” during the press-briefing in Ukrainian Crisis Media Center.
According to Mr.Topchiev, more than 166 objects of railway infrastructure of the Donetsk, Prydniprovsk and Southern railways were damaged as a result of combat actions within May-July 2014. Preliminary analyses show, that the losses of the railways from the terrorist actions reach 300 million hryvnias.
“Because of the closed border passes, the railway cars from Donetsk to Russia and through Russia to the countries of Central Asia are now directed through the Southern railway. It increased the transporting distance by an average 500 km, that`s why the exploitation costs of each train increase in 73 thousand hryvnias, which makes more than 13 million hryvnias per month.”, – claims Mykola Topchiev.
The representative of “Ukrzaliznytsia” also informed, that cargo transportations performance of Ukrainian railways in July 2014 in comparison to the same period of 2013 have decreased in 5.2 million tones or 13,6%. Among the main reasons of such performance fall Mr.Topchiev named the damaging of infrastructure and carriages, cargo transporting blockade, as well as the disrupted connection with the factories, located directly in the combat action areas.
Mykola Topchiev believes that, beside financial losses of the railways, the damaged infrastructure creates a threat for such great enterprises as “Azovsteel”, Yenakiyevo steel plant, “Alchevsk steel integrated plant”, Donetsk steel plant, Donetsk metalworks, Avdiivka coking plant, “Stirol”, “Severodonetsk union “Azov”, because they can simply stop functioning. “These plants are cut off from raw material supplies from Dnipropetrovsk and other regions. They are also cut off from the coke and coal supplies from the northern regions of Donbass – Lugansk oblast`. All these factors combined create a threat for a substantial fall of the national GDP”, – assured Mykola Topchiev.
In spite of difficult and dangerous conditions, railway employees provide the railway traffic; they reconstruct the damaged objects of the railway infrastructure. According to the information of the “Ukrzaliznytsia” officer, railway employees reconstructed 66 railway objects out of 90 damaged ones as on August, 1st. The overall costs of such work reach 1 million hryvnias. The temporary scheme was used to reconstruct 6 artificial buildings, with the cost of 1.6 million.
