Ukrainian Infrastructure Minister is confident that railway traffic between Ukraine and Russia will be terminated
The Minister of Infrastructure of Ukraine Volodymyr Omelyan stated on the ZIK TV Channel that he believes that the railway communication between Ukraine and the Russian Federation will certainly be terminated.
The minister said that according to data, the number of Ukrainian citizens’ trips to the Russian Federation using rail transport is being “inexorably reduced”. Therefore, it [the railway communication] will be terminated either by a government decision or nobody will actually use it,” Interfax Ukraine quoted Omelyan as saying.
The minister noted that the issue of terminating the railway communication between Ukraine and the Russian Federation has not been finalized by a decision of the Cabinet of Ministers yet.
“However, thanks to the efforts of the Infrastructure Ministry and the Ukrainian Railways, in 2018, we received a much greater flow of passengers to the west than to the east,” the minister said.
In 2018, the Ukrainian Ministry of Infrastructure prepared a number of proposals for countering Russia’s activities in the Azov basin and the uncontrolled territories, including the cessation of passenger traffic. Relevant proposals were sent to the Cabinet.
“This set of measures includes the termination of the railway communication with Russia. The issue has been discussed during interdepartmental working meetings at the Ministry of Infrastructure. We want to bring this issue into the government or the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine to make a decision at the state level,” Omelyan had said.
According to him, they were discussing only the termination of the passenger railway communication.