Source : INDIA TODAY NEWS
More than four years into Russia’s full-scale invasion, Ukraine is facing a deepening economic squeeze. Russian strikes are battering factories, ports, railways and bridges across the country. At the same time, the cost of fighting continues to rise. Kyiv is now scrambling for money to sustain the war — and for locomotives to keep its economy moving.
Russian strikes on Ukraine‘s rail network have destroyed or damaged hundreds of locomotives, putting further pressure on a transport system already stretched by the war.
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The impact is now reaching the country’s Black Sea trade. Grain, iron ore and other cargo still need to travel from inland production centres to the ports, meaning damaged maritime infrastructure is only part of the problem. Without enough trains to haul freight, getting cargo to the berths could become the major bottleneck.
Agriculture Minister Taras Vysotskyi told the Financial Times that Ukraine is negotiating with European countries whose railways use the same track gauge in an effort to secure additional locomotives and rolling stock.
The urgency is particularly clear around the port of Pivdennyi, one of Ukraine’s major maritime gateways. Mykyta Hrubov, chief executive of port operator TIS, told the FT that three locomotives had been lost around the company’s terminal.
“There is a big shortage now, this is a weak point for us,” he said, as per the report.
RUSSIA IS HUNTING UKRAINE’S TRAINS
The locomotive shortage is not simply the result of ageing equipment or battlefield attrition. Russia has increasingly made Ukraine’s railway system a target.
Russian forces have stepped up attacks on trains carrying grain and iron ore, two of the country’s most important export commodities. Earlier reports said more than 500 locomotives had been damaged or destroyed since Russia’s full-scale invasion began in 2022, with more than half of those losses occurring in 2026.
Ukraine’s railway operator has also warned that it is losing dozens of locomotives every month.
The attacks are no longer confined to the frontline. Russia has increasingly deployed jet-powered drones to hunt moving trains, using relay networks that allow operators to control the drones even when Ukrainian electronic warfare systems are trying to disrupt them.
Oleksandr Pertsovskyi, chairman of the management board at Ukraine’s state railway operator Ukrzaliznytsia, has said the campaign goes beyond disrupting military logistics.
“Russians aim to isolate our frontline communities, sow panic and fear among the already exhausted locals, paralyze the economy,” he said.
The railway is also essential for evacuating civilians and transporting critical supplies, meaning every locomotive lost has consequences well beyond the movement of commercial cargo.
Ukraine’s 1,520-millimetre railway gauge makes the replacement effort harder. Most European railways use the narrower 1,435-millimetre standard, limiting the number of locomotives that can be transferred and put into service quickly.
THE PORTS ARE UNDER PRESSURE TOO
The railway crisis is colliding with another major problem: Russia’s intensifying attacks on Ukraine’s Black Sea export infrastructure.
Ukraine’s Black Sea ports have long been crucial to keeping its economy moving. Before the full-scale invasion, they handled the vast majority of the country’s grain exports. Now repeated attacks have damaged port infrastructure and disrupted the routes connecting farms and industrial sites to the coast.
The consequences are already being felt by farmers and exporters.
Ukraine had expected to export tens of millions of tonnes of agricultural products this year, but the disruption to maritime routes has sharply reduced the amount that can reach overseas markets. The longer the ports remain constrained, the greater the pressure on alternative routes.
But alternative routes are expensive and limited.
That makes locomotives a big part of the problem. A port may have the capacity to load a vessel, but that capacity is of little use if grain and iron ore cannot be moved from inland Ukraine to the docks.
The disruption is also creating a storage problem for farmers, who risk being forced to keep harvests in temporary storage or sell at lower prices when transport and export options disappear.
UKRAINE’S WAR BILL IS RISING
The pressure on transport infrastructure is unfolding against a much larger fiscal crisis.
In Kryvyi Rih, the hometown of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Russian airstrikes have brought major parts of the city’s steel and mining industry to a standstill. The industrial city of about 600,000 people is now trying to preserve basic services while its economic base contracts.
Mayor Oleksandr Vilkul said the city was doing everything possible to keep hospitals open, schools and kindergartens functioning and buses running.
“In Kryvyi Rih, the situation is actually worse than anywhere else, apart from the front line itself,” Vilkul, a former mining executive, said in a video address.
The city’s largest employer, ArcelorMittal’s mining and steel complex, suspended operations last month after a series of Russian ballistic missile strikes. The damage reflects a broader collapse across an industry that once accounted for about a tenth of Ukraine’s economic output.
Steel plants in other industrial centres, including Zaporizhzhia, have also been forced to halt or sharply reduce production.
“It’s about survival. Right now, we need to survive,” Vilkul said.
The damage is translating directly into lost tax revenue at a time when the government needs more money than ever.
UKRAINE’S REVENUE SHRINKS
Ukraine spent more than USD 44 billion on defence during the first nine months of this year alone, according to Reuters. Over the same period, the government raised about USD 42 billion in tax revenue.
Russian attacks have made that imbalance worse. Pidlasa said Ukraine’s budget had lost more than 49.5 billion hryvnias, or about USD 1.1 billion, in tax revenue during the first nine months of the year because strikes damaged property, disrupted logistics and forced businesses to shut temporarily.
The cumulative loss could reach 70 billion hryvnias by the end of the year, according to government estimates.
The financial pressure is already shaping Ukraine’s plans for next year. The government has proposed a record defence budget of about USD 110 billion, excluding direct military assistance from allies. Finance Minister Sergii Marchenko has estimated that the unfunded gap for next year is already more than USD 32 billion.
Marchenko has argued that frozen Russian assets in Europe could help plug the hole. EU countries have immobilised roughly 210 billion euros in Russian central bank assets since the invasion.
“Ukraine continues to mobilise domestic resources, but the scale of Russia’s war puts clear limits on our capacity,” Marchenko said on X.
For Ukrainian businesses, the uncertainty is becoming harder to absorb.
Some companies have cut back operations, while others have shelved investment plans. The agriculture sector faces a similar squeeze. Russian attacks on Black Sea ports have disrupted one of Ukraine’s biggest sources of export revenue, while the shortage of locomotives threatens the inland supply chain needed to move crops and raw materials to the coast.
That leaves Ukraine facing a problem that is both military and economic: it needs money to replace the infrastructure being destroyed, but the destruction itself is reducing the tax and export revenues needed to fund the war.
For the railways, there is no plan to stop. Pertsovskyi said Ukrzaliznytsia was preparing for multiple scenarios and working on alternatives, including moving passengers by road when trains are hit.
“We have various operational plans to balance safety, but we are certainly not considering a scenario where we stop. Just as our country does not contemplate giving up the fight, the railway, naturally, does not contemplate halting its operations,” he said, as quoted by Politico.
There is little sign of the pressure easing. Peace talks remain deadlocked, while Russia has said it will continue targeting Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities. For a country already struggling to keep its economy afloat, every new strike brings more damage to infrastructure, disrupts trade and puts further strain on public finances, which only adds to the already heavy cost of a war with no end in sight.
– Ends
With inputs from Reuters
SOURCE :- TIMES OF INDIA
