Ukrainian Railway commences nationalisation of over 15,000 wagons of Russian companies
Ukrainian Railway (UZ) has officially announced the commencement of nationalisation of Russian wagons, which are located at the railway stations in Ukraine. 15,076 wagons of 250 Russian companies will be added to the fleet of the Ukrainian state-owned railway undertaking. The decision is in line with the current Ukrainian legislation.
With the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, 15,076 wagons of 250 Russian companies have ended up on the Ukrainian railway network. According to the Ukrainian Railway (UZ), they belong to the following types: 10,956 open wagons, 2,057 tank wagons, 587 covered wagons, 158 flat wagons and 1,318 wagons of other types. They will be nationalised by UZ in the near future. This became possible after the signing of the Law “On Basic Principles of Compulsory Seizure of Property Rights of the Russian Federation in Ukraine” by the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy on 10 March.
UZ has also published a preliminary list of the Russian companies whose wagons will be nationalised. Among them are WEB-Leasing, VTB-Leasing, Gazpromtrans, GTLK, Sberbank Leasing, TransContainer and many others. “Now Russia’s wagons will work for Ukraine’s economy. They will be useful to us because we are developing new logistics routes to Europe that will help resume freight operations,” noted Oleksandr Kamyshin, the acting CEO of the Ukrainian national railway undertaking.
Meanwhile, he added that 482 wagons owned by the Ukrainian companies are in Russia. They are most likely to be also nationalised by the Russian Railways (RZD).