19 Sep 2022 19:16

More than 7,000 Belarusian railway carriages stuck in Ukraine - Belarusian Railway

MINSK. Sept 19 (Interfax) - More than 7,000 Belarusian railway carriages were stuck in Ukraine after the start of the Russian military operation, Belarusian Railway head Vladimir Morozov said.

Their status is now unclear, he said.

"In total, more than 7,000 Belarusian railway carriages, not only those of Belarusian Railway, but also those of enterprises, were stuck in Ukraine as of February 24. Plus there are carriages with Russian, Lithuanian, Latvian, and Estonian owners. Three cargo locomotives remain on the Ukrainian side. Accordingly, our locomotive brigades are still there at the moment," Morozov said on STV television on Sunday.

"We have some 500 Ukrainian carriages on the Belarusian side. But they are all under our control, they have not been confiscated; we see them. They are now on the territories of the enterprises which received the cargoes from their partners. And two Ukrainian locomotives. At the first stage, the task was to bring the people back. In actual fact we managed to return our train drivers, employees of the Kalinkovichi locomotive depot and the Luninets locomotive depot through Poland within a month. And, accordingly, to return Ukrainian railway workers home as well," Morozov said.

The carriages contained oil processing products, chemical fertilizers, construction and food cargo - all goods that Belarus traded with Ukraine, he said.

"The status of the carriages is now unclear. We have information that they are implicated in a criminal case as they were used to transport some things and therefore they were seized by Ukrainian law enforcement agencies. We understand that this is not so. And most probably the carriages are used for transportation. The carriages could be involved in various activities. The Ukrainian Infrastructure Ministry and Ukrainian Railways have not officially contacted us regarding this matter yet," Morozov said.

"It's a serious number. It's the republic's state property. The task is to return and assess the damage. Five thousand is almost 900 million rubles for the Belarusian Railway. This information has been discussed at the level of the president. We need these carriages. We need them for our (business) model, and for meeting the needs for transportation. And we created this program for a five-year period with regard for our two factories' capacities," Morozov said.