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Kommersant: Ukraine may terminate passenger rail service across Russian border

Source: Kommersant

Ukraine is preparing for a complete ban on railway service with Russia, reported newspaper Kommersant on Thursday, citing sources close to Ukraine’s government. Ukrainian Railways, however, has stated that no such decision is being considered. Ukraine’s Infrastructure Minister Volodymyr Omelyan has also since said that the question of terminating railway service with Russia is not being considered at present, but did note that it should have been discussed a long time ago.

Earlier on Thursday, Kommersant reported that the ban on passenger transportation would be introduced starting from July 1, 2017. The ban, the newspaper reported, would be instated because Russian Railways continues to send its trains to the pro-Russian-separatist-controlled regions of Donetsk and Luhansk.

It was also reported that in anticipation of the ban on railway service, Belarusian airline Belavia was already involved in negotiations to increase the number of flights it services from Moscow to Kiev via Minsk.

Former deputy head of Ukraine’s Transport Ministry Alexander Kava told the publication that passenger traffic with Russia has already declined by more than 60 percent since the start of the Russia-Ukraine conflict but still amounts to almost 2 million people a year.

Since May 18, 2017, there has been a complete ban on the movement of trucks of a number of Russian enterprises cross Ukraine, as well as sanctions against Russian Railway’s Federal Freight Company. All FGC vehicles are expected to be withdrawn from Ukraine before the end of May.

Ukraine has also expanded its list of sanctioned Russian companies and individuals, blocking access to the services of Yandex, VKontakte, Odnoklssniki, and Mail.Ru.

In the Voronezh and Rostov regions of Russia, new railway routes are now being built to bypass Ukraine. They are nearly 140 kilometers long and are expected to be completed by August 1, 2017.

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