War against Ukraine: On the first train from Kyiv to Kramatorsk

There has been no connection from Kyiv to Kramatorsk railway station since the rocket attack on Kramatorsk railway station in April. The first train has now traveled the route again. But the risk travels with you.

“I’m ready,” says Inna Jampolez quietly as the train pulls into the station. Her suitcase on wheels and the checkered bag heavy with lead are already ready when she can read the red and white station building with the blue lettering: Kramatorsk.

“I’ve waited so long and longed for this place so much,” says the 53-year-old slim woman in the black leather jacket. She can hardly believe that after six months she is back home in Donbass. After the Russian invasion in February, she lost her job as a seamstress. She fled to relatives near Kyiv at the end of March.

More than 600 kilometers to the east

“It was terrible,” she says. “I coped very badly when we were shelled so hard. It was very bad for me. We took an evacuation train from here towards Sloviansk.”

Around six hours earlier, Jampolez gets on at the main station in Kyiv. It’s still dark early in the morning when the Ukrainian Railway’s silver train pulls out of the station. More than 600 kilometers to the east, via Poltava and Sloviansk to Kramatorsk in the Donetsk region of the Donbass.

Kyiv – Kramatorsk. For the first time since the Russian rocket attack on the Kramatorsk station at the beginning of April with 62 dead, the railway is offering this route again. A part of the leadership team of the Ukrainian railways is traveling with them.

First train journey since April

DB HR Director Oleksandr Pertsovskyj is responsible for around 230,000 employees and has made himself comfortable in one of the blue-upholstered seats. While a colorful autumn landscape passes by the window, the bearded man in his mid-forties emphasizes the great symbolic power of this first train journey from Kyiv to Kramatorsk since April:

Deep longing for home

Vita Srelych is sitting a few wagons away. She changes trains in Poltava in the direction of Kharkiv, where her elderly father lives. The whole family was torn apart – all the way to Canada, where her daughter now lives, says the kindergarten teacher. At the end of March, she fled with her family from the port city of Mariupol, which has since been occupied by the Russians. Less than ten horses would now take them to the Donbass, the final destination of the journey.

But she also feels the deep longing for home: “It’s very important to go home. That’s where you want to go, even if your house is destroyed. They didn’t save our Mariupol.”

The railroad is even more important

Evacuations are no longer officially counted because people’s behavior has changed, according to Deutsche Bahn Board Member Oleksandr Perzowkzyj. With increased Russian attacks, people would often only drive away for a while, such as from the Ukrainian-controlled city of Zaporizhia. Thousands of tickets were sold there.

The already important railway has become even more important as a means of transport since the Russian attack on Ukraine. Since the airspace is closed to passenger flights, more people take the train. Humanitarian aid and, for the first time in 20 years, mail are being transported. The Human Resources Director made no official comment on the transport of weapons, including Western ones, to the front by rail.

At least 260 railway workers killed

Hundreds of kilometers of track, numerous station buildings and much of the infrastructure of the Ukrainian railways have been bombed by Russia since February. At least 260 railway workers died on the job, almost 490 were injured and more than 100 lost their homes. The actual numbers are higher, Deutsche Bahn board member Oleksandr Pertsovskyj suspects, because there is no reliable information from the Russian-occupied areas.

At the front of the driver’s cab, train driver Mychail Karpetz looks through a pane with bullet holes and cracks. Due to delivery problems, it has not yet been repaired. “I would be lying if I said I’m not afraid,” says the blond man in the white shirt in a friendly manner.

Around 3.8 million people have been evacuated by Deutsche Bahn in recent months. Eisenbahner Karpetz witnessed the suffering of the people up close, as in March in Kyiv: “I was handed a child through the window by parents who hadn’t been given a seat on the train. With tears in their eyes, they gave me the child and said that I should give volunteers in Lviv. We took the mother with us, but not the father.”

Ukrainian trains are mostly on time

Upon arrival, Inna Jampolez pulls her trolley case through the Kramatorsk train station. Past the memorial stone commemorating the 62 dead in the Russian attack in early April. She is now looking for work, is looking forward to family and friends and says her greatest wish when she says goodbye: “I just want the war to be over.”

Despite shelling and destruction – Ukrainian trains are mostly on time. The train back from Kramatorsk also reached Kyiv on time later in the evening without incident. But everyone knows that there is always a risk.