MOSCOW, September 26 (RIA Novosti) -The events in Ukraine are seriously affecting the railways of both Russia and Ukraine, but the railway companies continue their cooperation, the head of the Russian railroad monopoly Vladimir Yakunin told RIA Novosti on Friday.
"The passenger traffic is down by 70 percent, and this is affecting the operations of the Federal Passenger Company [a subsidiary of Russian Railways for long-distance passenger traffic] in the most serious way. Because of this, we have witnessed an abrupt discontinuation of a relative growth of passenger turnover trend. Of course this is hard for both the Ukrainian Railways and the Russian Railways," Yakunin said.
According to Yakunin, Ukraine is bearing great losses due to the raging conflict in the eastern regions of the country. "For Ukraine they [problems] are, of course, stunningly huge as these regions are industrialized," he explained.
Yakunin noted that for the Russian Railways the losses are reflected in an inability to receive the locomotives pre-ordered from Luhanskteplovoz, and also in the 3.5 billion rubles ($91.4 million) lost due to Kiev's failure to provide the services of locomotive traction.
