Experts summed up the results of the annual work of the Russian railway bypassing Ukraine, having learned whether this railway line justified the tasks and expenses.
Recall that initially the initiative to build this section appeared four years ago, as it could help open transportation to the south without crossing the Ukrainian land. This proposal was then made by the management of Russian Railways. However, the idea itself existed for a long time, but the aggravated political situation between the countries prompted its implementation.
Prior to this, the trains of the Russian Federation in the southern direction followed, including through a separate section of the Luhansk region (37 km), because of which they had to cross the Ukrainian border twice in order, for example, to overcome the distance from Moscow to Adler.
And already in the spring of 2015, the construction of this railway track began. And in September, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev signed a construction document, which called on to provide the country with a stable and independent movement in this direction. The prime minister ordered to build the necessary infrastructure around the new track, as well as to provide additional jobs in the regions.
Photo source: rbk.ru
On August 7, 2017, the road was finally completed and started working. First, a test freight service was launched, after which, at the end of autumn, trains were opened for passengers. And in winter, all Russian trains in the southern direction were completely transferred to this railway line.
As a result, this route, completely passing through the territory of Russia, is 137 kilometers. It is known that the railway line is only 30 km longer than the previous one, and also connects the Voronezh and Rostov regions. According to estimates, this construction cost the Russian Federation 56 billion rubles. Now there are 30 pairs of freight and 62 pairs of passenger trains on the road. In addition, new stations were built in the districts where the carriages stop.
Ukraine also commented on this news a year ago. According to the Minister of Infrastructure Vladimir Omelyan, Kiev welcomes this project of Moscow, and allegedly there will be no consequences for their country from this.
Photo source: news247.com.ua
However, a year has passed since the railway line is working properly. And according to the supporters of this project, this road, just like the Crimean bridge, was completed ahead of schedule. All this made the specialists think that the project this year will have a truly positive economic effect. It is also believed that this construction then solved certain political issues about the safety and reliability of the transportation of people and cargo in the existing relationship between Kiev and Moscow, which continues to deteriorate so far.
The press service of Russian Railways itself also spoke on this topic. They noted that the company successfully coped with this construction, adequately fulfilling the instructions of the Russian government.
It is known that the main goal of the project was to improve the safety of transportation, as well as to abandon the external factor influencing them in the face of Ukraine. Indeed, the new southerly line now lies entirely on Russian territory, which has also improved communications between regions within the country.
Director of the Institute of Transport Economics and Transport Policy (IETiTP) of the Higher School of Economics and Professor of the Faculty of Economic Sciences Tatyana Kulakova noted that this road fully fulfills its task. Among other things, the task has been facilitated for the passengers of these trains themselves, who now do not need to cross the border twice. Evaluating the annual work of the line, the expert concluded that it justifies itself in terms of economy and solving user problems.
Photo source: rbk.ru
But the chairman of the International Public Organization "Union of Passengers" Kirill Yankov believes that this railway track will never pay back its costs. The expert believes that here it is necessary to look no longer for financial benefits, but for the political aspects of the relationship between the two parties. Since it was more profitable for the Russian Federation from a material point of view to use the old line, however, the choice was made to a greater extent from reliance on politics. According to Yankov, the only result of this construction is that Russian trains heading south now do not enter Ukraine. Also, this line allows higher speeds, which saves time for transportation.
According to Pavel Ivankin, Director General of the Institute for the Study of Railway Transport Problems and leading industry expert, the project cannot be called commercial. He also agreed with the previous expert that his goal was to exclude traffic on the territory of Ukraine.
Let us recall that along with all these positive comments about the construction, it was accompanied by negative reviews. For example, some residents of the Rostov region, located on the border with Ukraine, complained that their local roads were damaged due to the work of construction equipment on this line. Nevertheless, this year “Russian Railways” has already transferred two billion rubles to this region in order to modernize those affected by the construction of the highway.
11.12.2017
Since December 11, Russia has transferred all transportation by rail bypassing the Luhansk region of Ukraine. What does Kiev lose and how will Kiev respond to the refusal of the Russian Federation from transit, DW figured out.
On December 11, 2017, Russia transferred all long-distance trains: both freight and passenger in the direction of Moscow-Rostov-on-Don and back, bypassing Ukraine. The Russian Federation declares the "strategic importance" of the event and estimates Kiev's losses at more than $ 200 million, which the Russian Federation used to pay for railway travel through the Luhansk region.
However, Ukrainian experts note that in fact, the amount of Russian payments for Luhansk transit decreased threefold after the events in the southeast of the country began, as traffic volumes fell. According to analysts, reforms of the Ukrainian Railways (Ukrzaliznytsia), renewal of rolling stock, modernization of railway infrastructure and active participation in the project of a new Silk Road from China to Europe will help restore Ukraine's losses from the fall in transit traffic.
Trains bypass
From December 11, passenger trains of the Russian Railways (RZD) will go southward at a distance of 25 km from the Ukrainian border through the Voronezh and Rostov regions - along the new Zhuravka-Millerovo line with a length of 137 km. Earlier, Russian trains went in transit through the short haul "Gartmashevka-Zorinovka" in the Luhansk region, crossing the Ukrainian border twice. The Russian media reported that "the constructed road will strengthen the independence of Russia and ensure the safety of transportation." After the opening of this section last September, cargo trains were launched through it, and the Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation Sergei Shoigu attached the Order of Zhukov to the banner of the 39th brigade of the railway troops, which took part in the construction.
Infografik Karte Eisenbahn Russland Ukraine RUS
"A short line in the Luhansk region between Hartmashevka and Zorinovka has long been in a state of decay," said the head of the Ukrainian Analytical Center, Oleksandr 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 the Rostov region was transported here," the DW interlocutor explained. Since 2014, freight traffic has dropped sharply, but some entrepreneurs have continued to transport. "The site was not the most important, its specificity was that the goods partially went through the territory of Ukraine, and now the Russians will bypass 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, and this is about $ 70 million, is of course undesirable."
Struggle for transit traffic
As reported on the website of the Ministry of Infrastructure of Ukraine, "in addition to 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 are carried out by different types of transport. It is the transportation of goods that brings more income to Ukrzaliznytsia and the Ukrainian treasury. However, over the past 3 years, the volume of transit freight traffic for certain groups of goods has been steadily declining. So, in 2016 alone, 30 percent less cargo was transported through Ukraine than in 2015.
Alexander Okhrimenko
“At the same time, in spite of the war, we still have Russian transit, although only Ukrainian trains run across Ukraine,” Oleksandr Okhrimenko stressed. He believes that Moscow has set a goal - to weaken the Ukrainian economy. "Through our territory there is a flow of goods from Asia to Europe and vice versa, it is beneficial for us to serve them," the expert says. But, according to him, Russia would like to bypass Ukraine "to take over the entire transit traffic of railroad traffic that goes from China through Kazakhstan to the Russian Federation and further to the EU countries."
Russian Railways plans to continue construction of a road from Zhuravka station to Prokhorovka. And by 2025, a high-speed railway line will be commissioned along the eastern border of Ukraine, 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 can lose up to $ 1.6 billion - this is how much they earned in 2011-2012 on railway transit to Europe, when relations with the Russian Federation were not were as they are now. " The same figure of possible losses of Ukraine was previously called by the media, referring to the words of Yevgeny Chervonenko, ex-Minister of Transport and Communications under Viktor Yushchenko.
"It is pointless to count past losses"
Ihor Tyshkevich, an expert at the Ukrainian Institute of the Future, agrees that the losses of Kiev named by Russia after the opening of a small section "Zhuravka-Millerovo" are exaggerated and cannot seriously undermine the economic potential of Ukraine. "With the beginning of full-scale hostilities in parts of the Luhansk and Donetsk regions, Ukrzaliznytsia no longer exists as a single whole, it is simply impossible to restore passenger and cargo traffic in the same volumes," said DW Tyshkevich.
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 will not do without Russian cargo." The expert also sees nothing unexpected in the fact that Russia is building a bypass railway 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 rupture of the cooperation between the Ukrainian and Russian railways, which was close in the past, this will surely happen, as the sun sets in the evening,” Tyshkevich is convinced. In his opinion, "Ukrzaliznytsia" should "do what it actually does now - hold tenders and negotiations on the purchase of new rolling stock and repair of the old one."
According to official data, the deterioration of the fleet of main-line 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 lines with overdue capital 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 basically exists only in the plans," says Igor Tyshkevich. The reason is not only a lack of investment, but also the absence of reforms in Ukrzaliznytsia itself, which are being dragged out for various reasons. Including, because of her transfer from the department of the Ministry of Transport under the control of the Cabinet of Ministers, and then back. And also "due to the inhibition of market mechanisms of work, the prevalence of political reasons over economic ones and an unwillingness to respond to accusations of large-scale corruption," which the Ukrainian media wrote about more than once.
In turn, Oleksandr 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 (TMTM) - one of the corridors of the Chinese "Silk Road". The southern route called "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 in the Baltic.
“There is a lot of talk about this project, but so far little has been done,” the expert said. “The critical situation should make Ukraine really think about how, along with the reforms in Ukrzaliznytsia, to implement this plan,” concludes Okhrimenko.
Or what are the costs of the events in Ukraine in the Russian borderland.The railway passed through Kantemirovka in 1871, 145 years ago and has since become an essential part of the local economy.
Nowadays, the regional center with such a name known to all of Russia, remained virtually without a railway. There is now a dead-end branch with not very good prospects in terms of commuter traffic. And the main course passed through the steppes 20 kilometers to the east.
Of course, they will arrange the movement of buses or minibuses, but the fact that the town with such a pretty station has actually lost its "piece of iron" is a reality.
Not fatal, of course, but it's just one of the many thousands of little things that Ukraine uses to make the life of ordinary Russian citizens worse. To which I would like to draw the attention of the residents of the capitals.
The movement of passenger trains to the south, bypassing Ukraine on the 137-kilometer line Zhuravka - Millerovo, was launched on Monday, December 11. Freight trains began operating on this route in mid-September 2017. According to Russian Railways, more than 120 passenger and up to 30 freight trains per day will run on the section.
In the Kantemirovsky district, which has a 95-kilometer border with the Luhansk region of Ukraine, during a large-scale construction, the Zhuravka station was reconstructed and a new Zaitsevka station was built in an open field. RIA Voronezh reports on how life has changed in the villages adjacent to the road, which problems have disappeared and which have appeared.
Lost in translation
The northern gate of the new section is Zhuravka station. Passenger trains will pass it without stopping, so that after 20 km, stopping for a couple of minutes at the Zaitsevka station, move further south. A kilometer from Zhuravka, the "piece of iron" bifurcates - to the right the old passage to Kantemirovka leaves, to the left - new rails have been laid, leading bypassing Ukraine.
The road cuts Zhuravka into two unequal parts. The school and kindergarten remain on the left as you head south, while the bank branch and post office are on the right. And moving to the other side of the village today is very problematic, - explained the head of the regional department of culture Elena Bogacheva.
From one part of the village to the other, where the school is located, the school bus now carries children, giving a detour 30 km. If you go directly through the village, as before, through an overpass specially hidden under the rails, only a couple of kilometers leave. But the builders in the course of work made a rise here, which has a slope of about 30 degrees. And the traffic police justly banned the movement of the school bus here, which is now forced to bypass.
- Of course, this is not normal. We adjusted the schedule for the arrival of the guys. To transport everyone from that side, the bus makes two trips. It turns out a tangible consumption of gasoline, and the trip is very tiring for children.
Olga Dotsenko
Director of Zhuravskaya secondary school
Personal transport, of course, skips here, but for public transport - a school bus, an ambulance, a fire engine - a ban. Therefore, for some of our children, the road to school takes an hour there and an hour back, although it is close here directly. When a large-scale repair of roads in the area begins, it may be possible to equip the passage. Before the reconstruction of the station, we had an ordinary equipped crossing, but now there is none. The builders promised to equip a new one, but they did not do anything, ”the head of the Zhuravsky rural settlement, Vladimir Pisarev, laments.
There are 92 students at the Zhuravki secondary school, 44 of whom live on the edge of the village, separated from the school by rails. Therefore, children spend two hours a day traveling - from home to school and from school home.
The future of Kantemirovka station
In the Kantemirovsky district, through which the new high-speed section of the "piece of iron" passes, the roads remain the biggest problem.
Take, for example, the brand new Zaitsevka station, which has grown in an open field 3 km from the village. The 20 km section of the road to the regional center is badly broken. The point is in heavy trucks, which in two years of construction of the railway line simply killed the asphalt. For a trip to these parts, taxi drivers charge three times the usual price.
The station is designed to service approximately 50-60 passengers per day. In addition to railway specialists, we recruited 17 people from neighboring villages - Zaitsevki, Titarevka. Of course, this is unskilled labor, but jobs have been created for the region, ”said Gennady Moiseenko, head of the Zaitsevka station.
According to the head of the district administration Vladimir Pokusaev, the issue of launching regular buses from the regional center to the new station is currently being worked out, but before the spring-summer of 2018 this road will not be overhauled.
In connection with the construction, about 640 hectares of land of four agricultural enterprises and farms were withdrawn from agricultural turnover. More than 112 km of asphalted roads in the region are partially or completely broken by heavy equipment. The amount required for their repair amounted to more than a billion rubles. This fall, about 4 km of the road from Kantemirovka to the built passenger station Zaitsevka was repaired, and Russian Railways gave guarantees that all roads will be restored within the next year. Here people are worried: will the Kantemirovka station remain on the map at all if all trains follow a new route past it? Will jobs remain there? - the head fears.
According to the press service of Russian Railways, they do not plan to close the Kantemirovka station yet - three suburban trains will run to it (one - on the day off). There are also no plans to cut down the staff at the station.
Photo. including mine, 2 years ago. Now there is none of this, but there is only a 3-time train Rossosh - Gatmashevka, where its terminus is at the very border.
Station Kantemirovka, the last stop before the same site. Here we stand for about 20 minutes (photo is not mine) 
Kantemirovsky elevator.
Cargo under VL80T lets us through.
Beautiful places here. Hills with characteristic chalk deposits, gullies and ravines.
The next Rostov region, to which it is very close, is already considered part of the south of Russia.
Station Gartmashevka, the last one on the Russian side, in front of the same section. Trains don't stop here.
The other day, the director of Russian Railways for passenger transportation Dmitry Pegov told reporters that from December 11, 2017, all passenger trains will be transferred to a new railway line bypassing Ukraine. And here's an amazing coincidence. Exactly on December 11, I had to drive along it.
I confirm. Train # 36 "Severnaya Palmira" Adler - St. Petersburg that day went along the new section Bochenkovo - Zhuravka.
1. I wanted to shoot a video from the vestibule of the last carriage, but it turned out that it was impossible to do it in a double-decker train.
On the constructed site, the builders carried out a large amount of earthwork, leveled the horizontal profile and ensured large radii of the curves. It is assumed that this will allow the highway to be used as part of the Center-South high-speed route. True, while the trains go through the section at speeds of 60-80 km / h, occasionally accelerating to 110 km / h.
1. Southern adjoining of the old railway to the bypass in the area of Bochenkovo station.
Due to the political component, the project attracts a lot of attention. Officials of different levels, every now and then break down, prematurely report on their successes. It so happened that I was in the area of Bochenkovo station just after the application and the admission of the first working train. It turned out on the spot that even the temporary route had not been laid there.
In practice, train # 36 covered the 130 km section in 1 hour and 40 minutes. The average speed was 79 km / h. For a short time, the train accelerated to 110 km / h, but mostly the speed fluctuated around 50-80 km / h. ...
2. An overpass on the M4 - Malchevskaya road. It was from him that the August photographs were taken.
It is important to understand here that the speeds depend not only on the rolling stock, the state of the track, but also on the old schedule. The main stroke is operational in both directions. The ride is so-so, especially on the arrows.
Work on the slopes of excavations has not yet been completed everywhere, in some places there are no tracks at stations, railway stations, construction of service roads is underway.
Zaytsevka station at the maximum degree of readiness. Information boards on the platforms are already working, the station itself is decorated with balloons.
3. Northern junction of the old railway in the area of Zhuravka station.
4. Station Zhuravka.
Railway troops are actively building a railway bypassing Ukraine. The fact is that 30 km of the road leading to the southern regions of Russia passes through the troubled Luhansk region. In order not to endanger the lives of passengers, it was decided to build a bypass route.
The AiF.ru correspondent visited the Russian border village of Chertkovo and found out why local residents are not happy with 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 region of the Voronezh and Rostov regions on a 26-kilometer section.
reference
The construction of a railway bypass will allow Moscow-Adler trains to follow 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 should not go through border checks - Russian trains go through the territory of a neighboring state without stopping.
If traffic on the Moscow-Adler highway stops, the only possible bypass 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.
The construction of the Zhuravka - Millerovo bypass railway will be completed in 2018. In the future, Russian Railways plans to make a high-speed road to get 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 Luhansk region of Ukraine will remain cut off from the Rostov-Moscow railway connection. In three years, the trains will go along the changed route, bypassing Chertkovo, bypassing Ukraine.
The Russians and their neighbors, the Ukrainians, are already calculating the losses due to the loss of Chertkovo's status as a passenger station.
Vasily Mormul, a resident of Chertkovo, is a retired railroad worker; all his life he served the section of the Chertkovo-Millerovo road, which, according to Russian Railways plans, will bypass a new branch in 2018.
"It will be bad for all Chertkov residents, and even more so for Ukrainians"
Considers Vasily Fedotovich.
Now residents of the regions of the Luhansk region adjacent to the Russian border use trains going through Chertkovo. It is especially convenient for residents of the border districts of the Luhansk region, neighboring with Russia - Markovsky, Belovodsky and Melovodsky.
In three years, the Chertkovo station will “move” 25 km deep into Russia and will be located near the Kuteinikovo settlement, 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), which is about 100 km, which is one way or the other.
"Such a taxi ride now costs a thousand rubles, it is difficult to get there otherwise."
The railwayman continues the conversation.
Under the current conditions, the same Ukrainians at the border checkpoint are taken by taxi drivers to Chertkovo station for 150 rubles. And the residents of Meli do not need to spend money on transport - you crossed the railway bridge, and you are already at the Chertkovo station, in Russia.
Section of the Rostov-Moscow railway line, passing through the Ukrainian territory.
What will become of the Chertkovo station?
The Chertkovo railway station is a breadwinner that gives income not only to regular railway workers, but also to ordinary residents of the two countries who bargain at the station at the time the trains stop. With the absence of trains, this extra earnings will disappear for many. And there is almost no other.
In winter, from six to ten trains per day stop at Chertkovo, in summer, when people travel from Moscow to the 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. Chertkovites are promised to leave 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 site is no longer serviced, then the road may suffer the same fate as the 32-kilometer Likhaya (Russia) - Izvarino (Ukraine) railway, which was dismantled for scrap.
"Where is the permission?"
Vasily Mormul knows every sleeper, pole, and lantern on the Chertkovo - Millerovo section.
"Everyone talks about the Ukrainian section of 26 km towards Voronezh from Chertkovo, but for some reason they forgot about two small sections on the Chertkovo-Millerovo stretch, in the other direction, where trains also have to travel through Ukrainian territory."
Says a pensioner.
Home with a passport. Russian houses ended up on the territory of Ukraine
The plots are small, two kilometers long, in one case the road stretches across the Ukrainian territory to a site of 14 hectares, in the other - 10 hectares. It is almost right next to the Russian border, but still on the side of Ukraine.
That is why the new branch will be run from the Voronezh Region to Millerovo.
The railwayman does not remember any territorial disputes with the Ukrainian side for the entire time of work, but one conflict still happened.
The incident took place in 2007, when Russian railroad workers were digging holes for power transmission towers right on the Ukrainian section of the track.
“Some people came to us, politely demanded a permit to work in the border zone, we told them that we did not have any permits and never had”
The Russian recalls.
According to him, they completed the work and no one bothered the Russian railroad workers anymore.
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, the Russian authorities decided on an expensive project, laying a railway bypassing a neighboring state in order to get reliable, stable and independent movement in the southern 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, Western military districts, numbering about a thousand people, were involved.
"We settled in an open field, now there is a military town, the personnel are accommodated in tents."
The chief of staff, deputy commander of the military unit Pavel Sharov is speaking.
By the end of 2017, a double-track electrified section of the Zhuravka - Millerovo railway line will pass through these fields. The task of the military is to prepare the embankment, then specialists from Russian Railways will take over. How to deal with the residents of Chertkovo, whom the new site, in fact, will leave in isolation, is still not clear.
Railway bypassing Ukraine will avoid provocations
Russian Deputy Defense Minister Dmitry Bulgakov.
Russian Deputy Defense Minister Dmitry Bulgakov personally came to the Voronezh Region to follow the construction of the tracks.
The railway bypassing Ukraine will start 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 follow the construction of the tracks.
- The railway service on the Zhuravka - Millerovo section will be opened on August 15, 2017. On this day, the first trains with people and cargo will go along this double-track electrified railway line, '' Bulgakov told TASS. - Thus, the task set by the President of Russia for the construction of the railway by the Railway Troops and JSC "Russian Railways" will be completed ahead of schedule, more than a year before the deadline.
The route from the Central Federal District to the Rostov Region passes through the Ukrainian territory. Trains run 26 kilometers across the Luhansk region along the border with Russia. The 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 track will provide independent train traffic, not tied to the problems and troubles that continue with our neighbors, Medvedev is sure. Also, this thread will allow people to save on tickets.
But the construction of a new railway line has one more plus - safety.
“The current Ukrainian government is hostile towards Russia,” recalled political analyst Oleksandr Chalenko. - They have repeatedly stated that Moscow is the aggressor. We constantly see provocations from Kiev. 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 they want. They recognize half of the passengers as accomplices of the terrorists and the border guards will take them out of the way. They will present far-fetched accusations, for example, the likes were placed under “separatist posts” on social networks. Then interrogations and arrests will begin. Or it would occur to the Ukrainian radicals to take revenge on the citizens of Russia for some things. And they will shower the carriages with Molotov cocktails. And the Ukrainian authorities can at any second take and block the route for trains. Why take such a risk? Naturally, Russia wants to protect itself. The paths will follow safe territory. We understand very well that this is a strategic road that connects the capital and the south of Russia.
Arrival of the train. Special reportage by Yulia Makarova
Zhuravka - Millerovo is a new railway line, which was built bypassing the territory of Ukraine. The new route passes through the Voronezh and Rostov regions.
Photo: Izvestia │ Alexander Kazakov
Now passenger trains bypass Ukraine
Since November 15, 2017, passenger trains in southern Russia have been allowed to bypass Ukraine along 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 be used by trains from Moscow and St. Petersburg to Kislovodsk, Anapa, Nazran, Novorossiysk, Adler and in the opposite direction.
In the future, it is planned to launch all trains bypassing Ukraine to the southern cities.
According to the project, the maximum speed of passenger trains 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."
Director General of the Institute for Natural Monopoly Problems (IPEM) Yuri Sahakyan said.
“Also, new lines are always built with the use of new technologies, which means, albeit on a small section, but 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 rating of the material: 4.9
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