Freight transportation by rail in Ukraine fell by almost 12% in six months

Ukrzaliznytsia transported 79.6 million tons of cargo in January-June 2025. This is 11.8% less than in the same period in 2024. About reported cEO of UZ Oleksandr Pertsovsky.

"With such dynamics, the annual figure will be about 50-52% of the cargo volume in the period before the full-scale invasion (2021)," he said.

According to Pertsovsky, "the lowest load in the history of the railroad [...] is extremely painful for the company's ability to function, because it was freight work that has always fed the railroad."

The biggest drop was recorded in the transportation of coal (-27.5%) and grain and milled products (-32.5%). At the same time, transportation of construction materials increased by 4% and cement by 10%.

By type of traffic, export transportation fell by 13.5% (to 38.7 million tons) and domestic transportation by 11.7% (to 35.5 million tons).

At the same time, it managed to increase imports by 5.4% (to 5.3 million tons). Transit was virtually non-existent.

• In February 2025, Pertsovsky said that the company's cargo transportation was more than are not able to compensate for the loss of passenger.
• In July, the business called for include subsidies for rail passenger transportation in the state budget. Currently, these losses of Ukrzaliznytsia are covered by cargo transportation – through cross-subsidization.