Ukrainian Railways (Ukrzaliznytsia) forecasts that this summer's passenger season will be harder than last year's. The reason behind the assessment is that sustained Russian attacks are costing the company carriages faster than it can replace them, the company announced.
Russia attacked Ukraine's railway infrastructure roughly 1,200 times in 2025 alone. It is more than in 2023 and 2024 combined, Interfax Ukraine reported. In 2026, Ukraine has already documented hundreds of strikes. The summer that's coming is what that arithmetic produces at peak demand.
Since the start of the full-scale war, Russia has destroyed 46 passenger carriages, 200 carriages, and a full Intercity+ high-speed train are awaiting repair from shelling, drone strikes, and resulting incidents; and about 1,050 more carriages are awaiting decommissioning due to age and unfit condition.
Nearly 10,000 people search for seats from Lviv to Kyiv each day
The average demand-to-supply ratio for train seats already stands at four people per seat, and the company expects it to rise to six per seat at the peak of the season.
On certain routes, the figures are starker: 9,762 people search for seats from Lviv to Kyiv on a typical day.
The company advised passengers to plan ahead, buy tickets 20 days out, take routes with transfers if direct seats are unavailable, and use the automatic-rebuy function when they are not.
For international travel, the company recommended airports in Moldova, Romania, and Hungary, where in-season availability is significantly easier than in cities in Poland.
"An uneasy summer lies ahead, but we continue to build new carriages and ramp up the pace of repairs on old rolling stock to make travel accessible to everyone during the peak season," the company said.
Strike pattern behind squeeze
The scale is documented. Since the start of the full-scale war, roughly 17,300 railway infrastructure facilities and pieces of rolling stock have been affected, with 7,300 damaged and 9,900 destroyed.
In 2025 and the first quarter of 2026 alone, Russian strikes damaged 209 locomotives, 239 passenger cars, 371 freight cars, 86 bridges, and 50 stations.
The math behind today's announcement says that summer travelers with soldiers on leave, displaced families visiting home, and Ukrainians moving between the country's cities will feel the squeeze either way.
