Ukraine, Poland agree to develop railway services

Ukrzaliznytsia JSC and Poland’s railway operator PKP (Polskie Koleje Państwowe) have agreed to develop railway services between the two countries.

The relevant statement was made by Ukrzaliznytsia’s press service, an Ukrinform correspondent reports.

The representatives of Ukrzaliznytsia JSC held talks with Polish colleagues, who had arrived in Ukraine for the first time since the Russian full-scale invasion started. The Polish delegation included Polskie Koleje Państwowe S.A. and PKP Group Management Board President Alan Beroud, PKP Polskie Linie Kolejowe S.A. Management Board President Piotr Wyborski, as well as the representatives of PKP Intercity, PKP CARGO and PKP LHS.

Ukrzaliznytsia JSC Management Board Chairman Yevhen Liashchenko mentioned that, in recent years, the railway operators of Ukraine and Poland had reached significant progress in terms of cooperation. In particular, they launched the new passenger routes, resolved the issues related to freight railway services, and improved the operation of border crossings.

“Currently, it is important to focus on strategic projects and solving the urgent issues. Together with our Polish colleagues, we discussed in detail all aspects of joint efforts and thoroughly studied the problematic issues in the work of border crossings and stations. We expect specific decisions by the end of the year,” Liashchenko told.

According to Polskie Koleje Państwowe S.A. and PKP Group Management Board President Alan Beroud, signing a joint declaration will enhance cooperation with the Ukrainian Railways. The areas of development, specified in the document, will allow PKP and Ukrzaliznytsia to build strategic partnership, both organizational and business.

The Ukrainian-Polish team discussed improving the quality of rolling stock and expanding the number of seats on the Lviv-Warsaw route running via Rava-Ruska, as well as the possibility of providing convenient connecting trips, namely with trains running towards Berlin, Vienna and Prague. Ukrzaliznytsia offered Polish colleagues to revise the issue of launching an additional train on the Kyiv-Warsaw route.

The two railway operators agreed to coordinate the preparation of railway infrastructure projects on the territory of their countries and border crossings as part of the development of the European transport corridors TEN-T, which were extended to the territory of Ukraine and Moldova in July 2024. The possibility of preparing railway infrastructure development projects to submit joint applications for the next project competitions under the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) will also be considered.

In the course of the meeting, the parties created working groups (passenger, freight and infrastructure) to determine bottlenecks, endorse joint decisions to eliminate them, and further strengthen strategic partnership.

A reminder that the European Union allocated EUR 13.9 million in grant assistance to improve road and transport infrastructure at border checkpoints between Ukraine, Moldova and Romania.

Photo: Ukrzaliznytsia