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Ukraine’s state railway operator Ukrzaliznytsia has urgently revised the timetables of 118 long-distance passenger trains and 62 suburban services starting January 22, the company’s press service said, citing CEO Oleksandr Pertsovskyi.

"With each new timetable, we usually aim to make trains faster. This time, however, we are making a painful but necessary exception by deliberately slowing down a number of services," Pertsovskyi said."The safety of passengers and railway workers, as well as the predictability of train operations, must come first."

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Ticket sales for most services departing from January 22 have already opened.

According to Pertsovskyi, Ukrzaliznytsia’s timetable planners completed work that would typically take up to five months under European practice in just seven days. As a result, the company expects to restore an on-time arrival rate of 91%, a level already familiar to Ukrainian passengers and closely watched by European partners.

"Despite the war, punctuality remains one of our key priorities," he said.

Pertsovskyi added that due to security risks and extensive damage to signalling systems, the timetable had to be "rebuilt" for the majority of trains arriving in, departing from, or passing through Kyiv.

  • In early December, Russia carried out a massive attack on the city of Fastiv, one of the most important railway junctions in the Kyiv region. The hub connects rail routes to Kyiv, Odesa, Zhytomyr, and Lviv.
  • The Fastiv railway station, a suburban train depot, and 27 railcars were destroyed in the strike. Damage to signalling, centralisation, and block systems forced dispatchers to switch to manual train control, imposing strict speed limits on traffic through the area.