The acting head of the State Railway Administration (Ukrzaliznytsia), Maksym Blank, has said on his Facebook page that the issue of transportation of coal from the eastern regions of Ukraine is not an issue for Ukrzaliznytsia alone. According to him, Ukrzaliznytsia will certainly provide railcars and diesel fuel for solving the country’s critical problems.
"But the problem of coal transportation through the eastern region is not only a matter of providing railcars and haulage. It is also a matter of urgent restoration of damaged infrastructure, clearing mines from individual sections, agreeing ‘firing’ corridors, coordinating dispatch from the captured Donetsk railway, special customs procedures, and, in the end, prioritizing one transport operation or another. In other words - it is coordination at the level of the Ministry of Energy, the Ministry of Interior, the Ministry of Defense, the Fiscal Service, etc.," Blank wrote.
He also wrote, “The coal has departed.” According to him, the possible volumes of coal transportation in the future will depend primarily on the ability to solve the abovementioned problems.
The Lugansk region’s Governor Hennadii Moskal recently said that more than 122,000 tons of coal was in warehouses on the territory controlled by Ukraine in the Donbass but they could not be taken out because of opposition by the Donetsk railway.
As reported, the press service of the Energy Ministry has announced that Russia has unblocked transportation of coal from its territory to Ukrainian thermal power stations.
