Mr. Matthä, as President of the Community of European Railways and Infrastructure Companies (CER), how do you see the situation of the Ukrainian railways?

Andreas Mihm

Business correspondent for Austria, Central and Eastern Europe and Turkey based in Vienna.

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The situation is very difficult.

Ukraine is at war.

I admire the commitment of the Ukrainian railway workers.

Europe's railways show solidarity.

We support our colleagues wherever possible.

Especially when it comes to transporting refugees.

But not only there.

Especially the colleagues from Poland, but of course also from Germany, do a great job.

Watching desperate Ukrainian women arrive with their children and nothing but a trolley is heartbreaking.

How do the Railways of Ukraine help?

Europe's railways have provided a large number of special trains for refugees free of charge.

The ÖBB alone issued around 100,000 so-called emergency tickets.

Italian railways are ready to send a special medical train to the Ukrainian border or other places where a small, mobile hospital may be needed.

The Polish railways prepared a medical train with provisions and blankets for refugees and cars equipped to care for the injured.

Many railway companies around the world have set up fundraisers for Ukraine and donated themselves.

There would be more to list.

After ten weeks of war, is it now more about transporting goods?

Not only.

The wave of refugees has subsided, but even here in the main train station in Vienna, between 1,000 and 2,000 refugees still arrive every day.

Then it's about goods transport in both directions, although we have the problem on the border with Ukraine of having to switch to the wider gauge, to vehicles that Ukraine provides.

There are also insurance issues, for example.

But they were resolved when the Ukrainian government declared that the state was de facto liable for any damage.

Russia is now systematically destroying the Ukrainian railway infrastructure?

We are watching this with growing concern.

This is not unexpected, since the military transports to Ukraine in particular are a thorn in Russia's side.

In this respect, the attacks here will possibly intensify.

Which goods do you mainly transport?

From Ukraine we transport grain, ores, coal.

This gives the Ukraine income, and we also need the grain to ensure security of supply in Europe and North Africa because the ships can no longer sail.

How many more transports are there?

Let me put it this way: it is significantly more than before the war.

In the case of ores, it is more than three times as much as before the beginning of the war.

But I cannot and do not want to go into details here.

But ÖBB's Rail Cargo Group (RCG) alone transported 60,000 tons of grain from March to April?

Yes, RCG is currently transporting grain in freight trains three times a week from Čierna in Slovakia via the Czech Republic and Poland to Brake in northern Germany.

A train is almost 500 meters long and carries 2000 tons of grain.

Now we're going to increase the offer again and run a train with Ukrainian agricultural products towards northern Germany every day for at least three months.

That's 25 trains to Germany every month, 5 trains stay in the Czech Republic and Slovakia.