Prokhorovka Zhuravka road being designed and under construction. The railway, bypassing Ukraine, “exports” hundreds of millions of dollars to the Russian Federation. “A powerful incentive for the Southern macroregion”
On Monday, a long-awaited event happened: all freight and passenger trains of the Russian Railway, traveling in the direction Moscow - Rostov-on-Don and back, bypassed Ukraine along the new Zhuravka - Millerovo railway line, 137 kilometers long. This road is laid through the territory of the Voronezh and Rostov regions at a distance of 25 kilometers from the Ukrainian border. Previously, Russian trains crossed it twice, transiting through the short section “Gartmashevka - Zorinovka” in the Lugansk region.
Kyiv experts did not estimate all losses
Traffic on the new highway was opened in early autumn. In September, freight trains began operating along it. On that memorable day, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu presented the Order of Zhukov to the 39th brigade of railway troops, which carried out the main work on the construction of the road. Now the highway has finally been put into full operation. 120 passenger and 30 freight trains travel along it every day.
Commenting on the event, Russian media noted that the railway built bypassing Ukraine “will strengthen the independence of Russia and ensure the safety of transportation.” In addition, savings are expected on payments for Ukrainian transit and maintenance of the Gartmashevka - Zorinovka section, leased by Russia in the early 1990s for 49 years. That's over $100 million a year.
“By the way,” said Ukrainian analysts, who looked more like accomplices of the Kyiv regime than responsible experts, “this stage has long been in a stale state.” Then they admitted that “the loss of even a small amount of payment for transit, which is about 70 million dollars, is, of course, undesirable.”
The general opinion of the Kyiv expert community was expressed in an interview with Deutsche Welle by the head of the Ukrainian Analytical Center Alexander Okhrimenko. “Before the start of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, coal mined in the Donbass and Rostov region was transported here,” the analyst explained. – Since 2014, freight traffic here has sharply decreased, but some entrepreneurs continued transportation. The section was not the most important, its specificity was that the cargo partially went through the territory of Ukraine, and now the Russians will go around it.”
In a word, “we don’t even mind.” This outward indifference may be inspired by the general, rather deplorable, state of Ukrainian roads, united under the control of the main state railway operator, Ukrzaliznytsia. According to official data, today 27 percent of the total length of main lines in Ukraine is operated with expired major repairs.
The unsightly picture is complemented by an acute shortage of railway equipment and its bad condition. Ukrzaliznytsia admits, for example, that the depreciation of the fleet of mainline electric and diesel locomotives, electric and diesel trains, freight and passenger cars exceeds 80 percent.
Against this bleak background, the loss of income from a short peripheral stage can, as Okhrimenko said, not be considered a “huge tragedy.” Meanwhile, the website of the Ministry of Infrastructure of Ukraine reports that railway transport provides 82 percent of freight traffic in the country and up to 50 percent of passenger traffic.
In light of these data, it is clear what an important role Ukrzaliznytsia plays in the Ukrainian economy. At the same time, the company connects its future with servicing transit cargo from Asia to Europe and back. The optimism of Ukrainian railway workers is caused by the Chinese “New Silk Road” project. Because other directions are still disappointing.
In the post-Maidan period, transit freight traffic through Ukraine decreased sharply. For example, last year 30 percent less cargo transited through the country than in 2015. Former Minister of Transport and Communications of Ukraine Yevgeniy Chervonenko estimated losses from the reduction in transit at almost $2 billion.
Russia will extend the highway along the Ukrainian border
Kyiv views its plans to participate in the “New Silk Road” as a kind of compensation for the losses incurred in the Russian direction. However, there are at least two obstacles in the way of these plans. One of them is the attitude of the Chinese themselves towards Ukraine. Recently, a delegation from Beijing, headed by the country's Deputy Prime Minister Ma Kai, visited Kyiv.
The local media began to excitedly discuss the prospects for Ukrainian participation in Chinese transit projects. They drew transport corridors along which goods from the Middle Kingdom could travel through Ukraine to Europe. Only Ma Kai came for a completely different reason - for money.
Several years ago, Beijing issued a loan of $3.6 billion to cover the supply of Ukrainian grain. The intergovernmental agreement stipulated that the State Food and Grain Corporation of Ukraine (SFGCU) would transfer to China more than three million tons of grain (including 1.1 million tons of corn, 1 million tons of wheat and about 1 million tons of barley) in payment of the loan. .
The Ukrainian side was supposed to ship half of the agreed volume of grain by the end of October 2014, the rest – in a month. The cautious Chinese transferred only the first tranche of $1.6 billion to the Ukrainians. And they were right. By November, Ukraine supplied China with only 65 thousand tons of corn and did not bother with grain supplies anymore.
The government of Arseniy Yatsenyuk has a different issue. It liquidated the GPZKU and took the funds in its possession into its own account. Under these conditions, the Chinese did not pay the second tranche of the loan and demanded the remainder of the first tranche back. Vladimir Groysman, who replaced Yatsenyuk at the head of the government, acknowledged Ukraine’s debt to China, but explained to his Chinese partners that repaying the loan “is not among the priority issues of the country’s leadership.” Today the priority of the Kyiv authorities is “war with the Russian aggressor.”
The Chinese were not satisfied with Groysman’s explanation. They sent Deputy Prime Minister Ma Kai to Kyiv to resolve the dispute out of court. Did not work out. It has now become known that China has sent to the London International arbitration court lawsuit against Ukraine. Beijing wants its money back, plus 6 percent per year of the tranche amount for using other people's money and legal costs.
After such a scandal, Ukraine can hardly count on the status of a reliable partner in Chinese transit projects. Moreover, the eastern transport corridors seem to be completely closed to it. Russian Railways announced its long-term plans in this direction.
It is planned to continue the construction of the road from Zhuravka station to Prokhorovka, that is, to create a cutting road along the Ukrainian border. Moreover, by 2025, a high-speed railway will be created along the eastern border of Ukraine (direction Voronezh - Liski - Rostov-on-Don). It will connect the central part of Russia with its Black Sea coast.
Ukrainian media imagined a similar project. They saw the transportation of Chinese goods bypassing Russia along the so-called Trans-Caspian International Transport Route (TITR). Ukrainians romantically called it “Silk Wind”.
Romance was seen in the double sea transshipment (via the Caspian and Black Sea) of Chinese cargo on the route China – Kazakhstan – Azerbaijan – sea ports of Georgia. Further, according to the Kyiv romantics, cargo should go to Ukraine, and from it through Belarus to the Lithuanian port of Klaipeda on the Baltic.
Serious experts initially doubted the feasibility of such a route due to the high cost of sea transshipment. Now added to this is the unreliability of Ukraine as a trading partner, and Russia’s competitive plans with options for its transport routes. They made Kyiv nervous.
Minister of Infrastructure of the country of Ukraine Vladimir Omelyan on the air of the TV channel “112. Ukraine" stated that Ukrzaliznytsia may stop railway communication with Russia from 2018. The final decision has not yet been made. The issue is being considered by the state railway operator of Ukraine, Ukrzaliznytsia.
The minister directly linked the possible reduction in communication with Russia with the launch of a railway bypassing Ukraine. This is not the first such threat. Commentators recalled that in May of this year, Kyiv already announced the cessation of railway traffic from July 1 due to Russian passenger traffic in the zone of the notorious Anti-Terrorist Operation.
The wrath of Kyiv was caused by the Taganrog-Donetsk train, “violating the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine.” Then they counted the passenger flow to Russia, the remittances of Ukrainian workers to their families in Ukraine, and quietly hushed up the topic until the launch of the new border highway.
Most likely, current threats will also remain without consequences. Whatever one may say, stopping communications with Russia will turn Ukraine into a railway dead end in Europe. This dead end will turn out to be transport, economic, political and, to some extent, moral. It is no coincidence that Minister Omelyan transferred the final decision to Ukrzaliznytsia. The Kyiv authorities are not yet ready to take responsibility for the complete transport gap with Russia.
Military personnel of the railway troops are actively constructing a railway bypassing Ukraine. The fact is that 30 km of the road leading to the southern regions of Russia pass through the troubled Lugansk region. In order not to endanger the lives of passengers, it was decided to build a bypass route.
An AiF.ru correspondent visited the Russian border village of Chertkovo and found out why local residents are not enthusiastic about the large-scale construction that has begun and why the new road will significantly worsen their well-being.
Now trains traveling through the territory of the Russian Federation to the south of the country have to cross the territory of Ukraine in the Voronezh and Rostov regions on a section of 26 kilometers long.
Reference
The construction of a railway bypass will allow Moscow-Adler trains to travel to the south of Russia without crossing the territory of Ukraine.
This section of the railway was built during the Soviet era, when the borders between the union republics existed exclusively on the atlas.
After the collapse of the USSR, according to an interstate agreement, transit passengers do not have to undergo border inspection - Russian trains pass through the territory of a neighboring state without stopping.
If traffic on the Moscow-Adler highway is stopped, the only possible detour route is through Volgograd. In this case, the travel time for trains traveling from Moscow to the south will increase by 12 hours. Therefore, it is necessary to build a new branch.
Construction of the Zhuravka - Millerovo bypass railway will be completed in 2018. In the future, Russian Railways plans to build a high-speed road to travel from Moscow to the Black Sea resorts in 15 hours.
Local residents will be isolated
Residents of two districts of the Rostov region and the adjacent Lugansk region of Ukraine will remain cut off from the Rostov-Moscow railway connection. In three years, trains will travel along a changed route, bypassing Chertkovo, bypassing Ukraine.
Russians and their Ukrainian neighbors are already counting losses due to the loss of Chertkovo’s status as a passenger station.
Chertkovo resident Vasily Mormul is a retired railway worker; all his life he has been servicing the section of the Chertkovo - Millerovo road, which, according to Russian Railways plans, will be bypassed by a new line in 2018.
“It will be bad for all Chertkovites, and even more so for Ukrainians”
Vasily Fedotovich believes.
Now residents of the Lugansk region adjacent to the Russian border use trains going through Chertkovo. It is especially convenient for residents of the border districts of the Lugansk region neighboring Russia - Markovsky, Belovodsky and Melovodsky.
In three years, the Chertkovo station will “move” 25 km deep into Russia and will be located near the settlement of Kuteinikovo, but it will become a transit station, that is, all passenger trains will pass through it without stopping.
The nearest station is located in Millerovo (Rostov region) or Kantemirovka (Voronezh region), and this is about 100 km, either in one direction or the other.
“A taxi ride like this now costs a thousand rubles; it’s difficult to get there any other way.”
The railwayman continues the conversation.
Under current conditions, taxi drivers take the same Ukrainians at the border checkpoint to the Chertkovo station for 150 rubles. And Melovka residents don’t have to spend money on transport at all - just cross the railway bridge, and you’re already at Chertkovo station, in Russia.
A section of the Rostov-Moscow railway route passing through Ukrainian territory.
What will happen to Chertkovo station?
The Chertkovo railway station is a breadwinner, providing income not only to full-time railway workers, but also to ordinary residents of the two countries who bargain at the station when the trains stop. With the absence of trains, this extra income will disappear for many. And there is almost nothing else here.
On Chertkovo in winter period from six to ten trains stop per day, in summer period when people from Moscow go to Black Sea resorts, up to 80 trains per day.
It is not yet clear what will happen to the Chertkovo station and the existing railway line. Chertkovo residents are promised to keep the Chertkovo - Millerovo train; at the station itself, it is quite possible that an unloading and loading area for freight trains will remain.
But whether Russian trains will continue to run along the 26-kilometer Ukrainian section is a big question. If there is no heavy traffic on this section and the section ceases to be serviced, then the road could suffer the same fate as the 32-kilometer Likhaya (Russia) - Izvarino (Ukraine) railway, which was dismantled for scrap metal.
“Where is the permission?”
Vasily Mormul knows every sleeper, pole, and lamp on the Chertkovo - Millerovo section.
“Everyone is talking about the Ukrainian section 26 km towards Voronezh from Chertkovo, but for some reason they forgot about two small sections on the Chertkovo - Millerovo section, in the other direction, where trains also have to travel through Ukrainian territory”
The pensioner speaks.
Home with a foreign passport. Russian houses ended up on Ukrainian territory
The sections are small, two kilometers long, in one case the road stretches across Ukrainian territory to an area of 14 hectares, in the other - 10 hectares. It's almost right next to Russian border, but still on the side of Ukraine.
That is why a new line will be built from the Voronezh region to Millerovo.
The railway worker does not remember any territorial disputes with the Ukrainian side during his entire work, but one conflict did occur.
The incident occurred in 2007, when Russian railway workers were digging holes for power line supports right on the Ukrainian section of the route.
“Some people came up to us and politely demanded a permit to work in the border zone, we told them that we do not have any permits and never have had them.”
The Russian remembers.
According to him, they completed the work and no one else bothered the Russian railway workers.
Since the collapse of the USSR and the proclamation of Ukraine as a sovereign state, no incidents have been recorded during the passage of Russian passenger trains through Ukrainian “appendicitis”.
Nevertheless, Russian authorities decided on an expensive project, laying a railway bypassing the neighboring state in order to obtain reliable, sustainable and independent traffic in south direction.
Construction began in an open field
Work on the construction of the new railway began at the end of March this year. The Russian military began preparing an embankment for the construction of tracks in the area of the village of Novopavlovka, Voronezh region.
Four battalions of railway brigades from the Central, Southern, and Western military districts, numbering about a thousand people, were involved.
“We settled in an open field, now there is already a military camp, the personnel are housed in tents”
This is the chief of staff, deputy commander of the military unit Pavel Sharov speaking.
By the end of 2017, a double-track electrified section of the Zhuravka - Millerovo railway will pass through these fields. The task of the military is to prepare the embankment; then Russian Railways specialists will take over the matter. What to do with the residents of Chertkovo, whom new site, in fact, will leave him in isolation - it is still not clear.
A railway bypassing Ukraine will avoid provocations
Deputy Minister of Defense of Russia Dmitry Bulgakov.
Russian Deputy Defense Minister Dmitry Bulgakov personally came to the Voronezh region to monitor the progress of track construction.
The railway bypassing Ukraine will begin work a year ahead of schedule - August 15, 2017. Russian Deputy Defense Minister Dmitry Bulgakov told reporters about this. He personally came to the Voronezh region to monitor the progress of track construction.
— The railway connection on the Zhuravka — Millerovo section will be opened on August 15, 2017. On this day, the first trains carrying people and goods will travel along this double-track electrified railway line,” Bulgakov told TASS. — Thus, the task set by the President of Russia to build a railway by the Railway Troops and JSC Russian Railways will be completed ahead of schedule, more than a year before the deadline.
The path from Central federal district to the Rostov region passes through Ukrainian territory. Trains run 26 kilometers in the Lugansk region along the border with Russia. Trains have to cross the border zone twice.
The order on the construction of a railway bypassing Ukraine between the Voronezh and Rostov regions was signed by Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev. This section of tracks will ensure independent movement of trains, not tied to the problems and troubles that continue with our neighbors, Medvedev is sure. This branch will also allow people to save on tickets.
But the construction of a new railway line has another advantage - safety.
“The current Ukrainian government is hostile towards Russia,” recalled political scientist Alexander Chalenko. “They have repeatedly stated that Moscow is an aggressor. We constantly see provocations from Kyiv. Recently there was a kidnapping of Russian servicemen. How can we know that when the train travels 26 kilometers across Ukrainian territory, everything will be fine? They can invent anything. Half of the passengers will be recognized as accomplices of terrorists and the border guards will remove them from the route. They will make false accusations, for example, likes were placed under “separatist posts” in in social networks. Then interrogations and arrests will begin. Or Ukrainian radicals will take it into their heads to take revenge on Russian citizens for some things. And they will throw Molotov cocktails at the carriages. And the Ukrainian authorities can take and block the route for trains at any second. Why take such a risk? Naturally, Russia wants to protect itself. The paths will go through safe territory. We understand perfectly well that this is a strategic road that connects the capital and the south of Russia.
Train arrival. Special report by Yulia Makarova
Zhuravka - Millerovo is a new railway line that was built to bypass the territory of Ukraine. The new route passes through the Voronezh and Rostov regions.
Photo: IZVESTIA │ Alexander Kazakov
Now passenger trains also bypass Ukraine
From November 15, 2017, passenger trains in southern Russia began to bypass Ukraine on a new section of the Zhuravka–Millerovo railway.
The length of the section is 137.5 km. It passes through the territory of the Voronezh and Rostov regions. The new section will accommodate trains traveling from Moscow and St. Petersburg to Kislovodsk, Anapa, Nazran, Novorossiysk, Adler and in the opposite direction.
In the future, it is planned to run all trains heading to southern cities bypassing Ukraine.
According to the project maximum speed Passenger train traffic on the section will be 140 km/h.
“Passenger traffic on the new Zhuravka - Millerovo line will definitely be safer and more comfortable for passengers”
Reported CEO Institute for Problems of Natural Monopolies (IPEM) Yuri Sahakyan.
“Also, new lines are always built using new technologies, which means, even if on a small area, the comfort of the trip will increase,” he added.
The cost of building the Zhuravka - Millerovo railway, bypassing Ukraine, was estimated at about 56 billion rubles.
Overall material rating: 4.9
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Yesterday, train traffic was launched on the new railway, which was built in the Rostov and Voronezh regions, bypassing Ukrainian territory. In the future, it will become part of a new high-speed highway from Moscow to the Black Sea coast.
They wanted to build the road even before the war
Since tsarist times, trains traveling from the south to the central regions (in particular, from the Rostov region to the Voronezh region) covered a 26-kilometer section through the territory of the Lugansk region. At the beginning of the 20th century, when this railway was being built, engineers simply chose the shortest route, but after the collapse of the USSR, a section of the route ended up on the territory of a neighboring state.
At first, this did not pose any problem: in the Lugansk region there is a tiny railway station Zorinovka (where there is not even a border control point), which belonged to Russian Railways.
However, the construction of a new expressway bypassing the neighboring state was announced even before the start of the civil war in Ukraine. The fact is that the main cargo flow from the European part of Russia to the Black Sea ports and back goes in this direction. However, the old road could not cope with the growing flow of goods and passengers.
The construction of the bypass was provided for by the federal target program (FTP) “Development transport system Russia until 2020." Moreover, as stated Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, the Russian side was not going to give up exploitation existing site railway through Ukraine.
However, with the outbreak of the civil war in Donbass, the need to operate the old road completely disappeared. They built a new double-track line at an accelerated pace: in 2015, the state invested 7 billion rubles in the project (of which 5.5 billion rubles were expenses for the construction and installation part), last year - 18 billion, and this year they have already spent 31 billion.
To travel around Ukraine, you need 800 km
At first, Russian Railways promised that operation of the new section of the railway would begin in 2018. But it turns out that they completed the task six months earlier.
The construction of the new railway was carried out by four brigades of the Railway Troops of the Ministry of Defense: the 34th from Ryazan, the 37th from Volgograd, the 39th from Krasnodar region and the 48th from Omsk. This recalled the times of construction of the Baikal-Amur Mainline (BAM), when in Transbaikalia and on Far East Two corps of troops with a total number of more than 40 thousand military personnel were transferred from all over the USSR.
On the border with Ukraine, titanic work also had to be done: the bypass route runs at a distance of 5 to 25 km from the state border, passenger trains here can reach speeds of up to 160 km/h, and freight trains - up to 90 km/h.
Six railway stations were built on the new section (in the Voronezh and Rostov regions): Zaytsevka, Sergeevka, Sokhranovka, Kuteynikovo, Vinogradovka and Kolodezi. A bridge was also built across the Belaya Kalitva River, two railway, four road and one pedestrian overpasses in the Voronezh region, and two pedestrian, four road and one railway overpasses in the Rostov region.
The new line "Millerovo - Zhukovka" should become integral part another, larger-scale railway bypassing Ukrainian territory. A new high-speed line (electrified, double-track) will be built from Prokhorovka, in the Belgorod region, to Zhukovka, from which the “bypass” line begins. The next stage is the construction of a 350-kilometer line from Chertkovo to Shakhty. Well, the final destination of the new road will be Bataysk in the Rostov region.
Currently, the existing railway from Prokhorovka goes through the Ukrainian cities of Kharkov, Chuguev, Izyum and Lugansk. The new road, with a total length of 800 km, will pass near seven Russian settlements, its opening will reduce travel time between Moscow and Adler by four hours - from the current 24 to 20. It is expected that the total investment in the megaproject will amount to almost 480 billion rubles.
There were “bypass” roads in Chechnya too
Russian Railways already has experience in building roads bypassing the “warring” territories. It is worth recalling that in 1994, the Railway Troops began building the 78-kilometer Kizlyar-Karlan-Yurt road, bypassing Chechnya: it allowed direct travel from Astrakhan to Makhachkala and further to Transcaucasia. At that time, the cost of construction was gigantic - 1 trillion rubles (albeit non-denominated).
However, the importance of the new road was enormous: so that trains with cargo could safely pass to the Iranian direction. Despite the difficult terrain conditions, the line was built in record time. short time, in just 270 days, and trains began running along it already in 1997. In 1998 new road transported 3 million tons of transit (export-import) cargo, which also made it possible to significantly increase transshipment in the Makhachkala seaport to 400 thousand tons.
However, after finishing Chechen war Terrorist activity moved to Dagestan, and already in 2003, militants blew up the track of a new railway. Fortunately, there were no similar incidents later...
Another major infrastructure project of Russian Railways involves the construction of bypass lines in the western direction in order to strengthen transport links between the Urals and the eastern regions of the country. The fact is that significant parts of the Central Siberian and South Siberian railways (with branches) are located on the territory of Kazakhstan.
For example, the Central Siberian Mainline (starts from Troitsk and goes to Barnaul) is “broken” by Kazakh territory, passing through Kustanai and Kokchetav, and the South Siberian Mainline, connecting Kartaly and Artyshta (station near Kemerovo) passes through Akmolinsk (Astana station) and Pavlodar.
“A powerful incentive for the Southern macroregion”
What are the prospects for the new infrastructure project? The Free Press posed this question to our resident economic expert, to the founder of the marketing group "Alekhine and Partners" Roman Alekhine.
— Of course, the construction of the railway will have an impact on the entire Southern macroregion positive influence. Firstly, new stations and substations have already been built. That is, jobs are created. Plus, this will serve as an incentive to create all the necessary infrastructure around the stations.
New transport hubs traditionally become a center for attracting investment and the construction of a number of additional facilities. And the construction of this accompanying infrastructure itself can give the region even more than a ready-made road.
Secondly, the opening of destinations without crossing with Ukraine creates great prospects for transporting goods and increasing passenger traffic. Therefore, it seems to me that we can expect improvement in the near future economic indicators Southern macroregion.
MOSCOW, August 11 – RIA Novosti. Russian Railways have completed construction and installation work on the railway section bypassing Ukraine and plan to open train traffic on this line by the end of autumn.
"Russian Railways has completed construction and installation work on the new Zhuravka - Millerovo railway line and has begun commissioning and test operation of individual sections of the line," the company reports.
A test train, consisting of a locomotive and several freight cars, has already passed along a 122-kilometer section from Zhuravka station to Bochenkovo station. In the remaining areas, pre-launch work is being completed.
Construction of the Zhuravka - Millerovo railway began in 2014, after the deterioration of relations with Ukraine. The new line, 137 kilometers long, runs entirely through the territory of Russia (through the Voronezh and Rostov regions), which will increase capacity and ensure transport safety of freight and passenger traffic.
The project involved a division of Russian Railways, Roszheldorstroy, and the railway troops. Earlier this week, the Ministry of Defense said that all construction tasks had been completed, with a total of 277 kilometers of track built.
Test operation
“The test operation of the Zhuravka - Millerovo line will allow us to check the readiness of the railway infrastructure, establish the operation of traffic control systems, and also prepare the locomotive crews who will operate trains on this section,” the Russian Railways said in a statement.
Member of the Crimea OP: a railway bypassing Ukraine will reduce the risks to nothingDefense Minister Sergei Shoigu awarded the builders of the railway bypassing Ukraine. Crimean political scientist, member of the OP of Crimea Denis Baturin, on Sputnik radio, noted the importance of building such bypass routes.The road is double-track along its entire length and electrified; seven stations were built here: Zaytsevka, Sergeevka, Sokhranovka, Kuteinikovo, Vinogradovka, Kolodezi and Bochenkovo.
The project, as the company notes, is characterized big amount artificial structures - 98 objects, including five bridges, including a bridge over the Kalitva River 158 meters long, one viaduct, four road overpasses, two cattle crossings, 20 overpasses for the passage of agricultural machinery, 66 culverts.
Trains will go faster
Another feature of the line is the large volume earthworks- 41.5 million cubic meters, which made it possible to level out the difference in height.
“Thanks to this, the highway will become part of the high-speed railway connecting Central Russia with the Black Sea coast. According to the project, the maximum speed of trains: passenger trains - 140 kilometers per hour with the prospect of increasing to 160 kilometers per hour, freight trains - up to 90 kilometers per hour,” they report RUSSIAN RAILWAYS.
To electrify the site, it was necessary to reconstruct two traction substations (Zhuravka and Staraya Stanitsa) and build two new ones - Sergeevka, Kuteinikovo and Kolodezi. In addition, 318 kilometers of power lines were laid.
"On last stage During construction, work was carried out on ballasting and straightening the track, adjusting the contact network, setting up signaling, centralization and blocking devices, which are automatically responsible for the movement of trains,” the statement says.
A year earlier
Russian Railways President Oleg Belozerov reported in March that the project was implemented a year ahead of schedule and the Moscow-Adler route, bypassing Ukraine, will be launched in the fall.
To reduce construction time, work was carried out simultaneously on all sections of the highway. Four temporary camps were built for the builders, technological highways, temporary electrical networks and other infrastructure were laid.
In addition, work was carried out in the construction zone to clear the area of explosive objects and archaeological excavations of 15 mounds were carried out.
11.12.2017
Since December 11, Russia has transferred all transportation by rail bypassing the Lugansk region of Ukraine. DW looked into what Kyiv is losing and how it will respond to Russia’s refusal of transit.
On December 11, 2017, Russia transferred all long-distance trains: both freight and passenger in the direction Moscow-Rostov-on-Don and back, bypassing Ukraine. The Russian Federation declares the “strategic significance” of the event and estimates Kyiv’s losses at more than $200 million, which the Russian Federation previously paid for railway travel through the Lugansk region.
However, Ukrainian experts note that in fact, the amount of Russian payments for Luhansk transit decreased threefold after the events began in the southeast of the country, as transportation volumes fell. According to analysts, reforms of the Ukrainian Railway (Ukrzaliznytsia), renewal of rolling stock, modernization of railway infrastructure and active participation in the project of the new “Silk Road” from China to Europe will help restore Ukraine’s losses from the fall in transit traffic.
Bypassing trains
From December 11, passenger trains of the Russian Railways (RZD) will run in a southern direction at a distance of 25 km from the Ukrainian border through the Voronezh and Rostov regions - along the new Zhuravka-Millerovo line, 137 km long. Previously, Russian trains transited through the short section "Gartmashevka-Zorinovka" in the Lugansk region, crossing the Ukrainian boundary twice. Russian media report that “the constructed road will strengthen Russia’s independence and ensure the safety of transportation.” After the opening of this section last September, freight trains were allowed to pass through it, and Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu attached the Order of Zhukov to the banner of the 39th brigade of railway troops that participated in the construction.
Infografik Karte Eisenbahn Russland Ukraine RUS
“The short section in the Lugansk region between Gartmashevka and Zorinovka has long been in a stale state,” said the head of the Ukrainian Analytical Center Alexander Okhrimenko. In the early 90s, this section of the road was leased to Russia for 49 years. “Before the start of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, coal mined in the Donbass and Rostov region was transported here,” the DW source explained. Since 2014, freight traffic has sharply decreased, but some entrepreneurs continued transportation. “The section was not the most important, its specificity was that the cargo partially went through the territory of Ukraine, and now the Russians will go around it,” says Okhrimenko. The expert does not consider this a “huge tragedy,” but, in his opinion, “the loss of even a small amount of payment for transit, which is about $70 million, is, of course, undesirable.”
The fight for transit traffic
As reported on the website of the Ministry of Infrastructure of Ukraine, “except for data on the temporarily occupied Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol, as well as part of the ATO zone,” railway transport provides 82 percent of freight and up to 50 percent of passenger traffic of all, which is carried out by different modes of transport. It is the transportation of goods that brings more income to Ukrzaliznytsia and the Ukrainian treasury. However, over the course of 3 recent years the volume of transit freight traffic for certain groups of goods has been steadily declining. Thus, in 2016 alone, 30 percent less cargo transited through Ukraine than in 2015.
Alexander Okhrimenko
“At the same time, despite the war, we still have Russian transit, although only Ukrainian trains travel through Ukraine,” emphasized Alexander Okhrimenko. He believes that Moscow has set a goal to weaken the Ukrainian economy. “There is a flow of cargo from Asia to Europe and back through our territory; it is profitable for us to serve them,” says the expert. But, according to him, Russia would like to bypass Ukraine “to take over all the transit traffic of railway transportation that goes from China through Kazakhstan to the Russian Federation and further to the EU countries.”
Russian Railways plans to continue construction of the road from Zhuravka station to Prokhorovka. And by 2025, a high-speed railway along the eastern border of Ukraine will be commissioned, which will connect the central part of the Russian Federation with the Black Sea coast (direction Voronezh-Liski-Rostov-on-Don). Okhrimenko warns that “when Russia builds its infrastructure in this region and stops using Ukraine as a transit country, Ukrainians could lose up to $1.6 billion - that’s how much they earned in 2011-2012 on railway transit to Europe, when relations with the Russian Federation were not were the same as they are now." The same figure for Ukraine's possible losses was previously mentioned by the media, citing the words of Yevgeny Chervonenko, the ex-Minister of Transport and Communications under Viktor Yushchenko.
“It is pointless to count previous losses”
Expert of the Ukrainian Institute of the Future Igor Tyshkevich agrees that the losses of Kyiv named by Russia after the opening small area“Zhuravka-Millerovo” are exaggerated and will not be able to seriously undermine the economic potential of Ukraine. “With the start of full-scale military operations in parts of the Luhansk and Donetsk regions, Ukrzaliznytsia no longer exists as a single whole, and it is simply impossible to restore passenger and cargo traffic to the previous volumes,” Tyshkevich told DW.
Igor Tyshkevich
Therefore, he is convinced that it makes no sense to count the losses of previous years, as well as “to say that Ukraine cannot do without Russian cargo.” The expert also sees nothing unexpected in the fact that Russia is building a bypass railway route around Ukraine, since “this is connected with the program for the development of Russian ports in the southern region of the Russian Federation.”
“As for the break in the close cooperation between the Ukrainian and Russian railways in the past, this will definitely happen, just like the fact that the sun will set in the evening,” Tyshkevich is convinced. In his opinion, Ukrzaliznytsia should “do what it is actually doing now - holding tenders and negotiations on the purchase of new rolling stock and the repair of old ones.”
According to official data, the wear and tear of the fleet of mainline electric and diesel locomotives, electric and diesel trains, freight and passenger cars is over 80 percent, with an acute quantitative shortage of this railway equipment. And the length of main tracks with overdue major repairs is 27 percent of the total length of railways.
“But if tenders for purchases and repairs are held, then the modernization of the railway track and power lines mainly exists only in plans,” says Igor Tyshkevich. The reason is not only the lack of investment, but also the lack of reforms in Ukrzaliznytsia itself, which are being delayed for various reasons. Including due to its transfer from the Ministry of Transport to the control of the Cabinet of Ministers, and then back. And also “due to the inhibition of market mechanisms of work, the predominance political reasons over economic ones and reluctance to respond to accusations of large-scale corruption,” which the Ukrainian media have written about more than once.
In turn, Alexander Okhrimenko recalled another project in which Ukraine could actively participate in order to compensate for the loss of Russian transit. This is the transportation of goods bypassing Russia along the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route (TITR) - one of the corridors of the Chinese "Silk Road". The southern route, called the Silk Wind, leads from China through Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Georgia, from there in two directions - to Turkey or Ukraine, and from there through Belarus to the Lithuanian port of Klaipeda on the Baltic.
“They talk a lot about this project, but so far little has been done,” the expert believes. “The critical situation should force Ukraine to really think about how, along with reforms in Ukrzaliznytsia, to implement this plan,” concludes Okhrimenko.
