At Kramatorsk station, a Ukrainian soldier meets his girlfriend near the train from Kyiv. Kramatorsk is about 30 kilometres from the frontlines of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.Photography by Olga Ivashchenko/The Globe and Mail
Inside the conductor’s cabin on a train headed east out of Kyiv, all was calm. The sun was rising over the tracks and the train was moving along, its rhythmic chug interrupted only by the call of its whistle.
But the relative safety of the Ukrainian capital was unlike the situation at this train’s destination: Kramatorsk, a city about 30 kilometres from the front lines of the continuing war with Russia. The train station there was struck by a missile in April, 2022. More than 60 people were killed, and the route was shuttered for six months.
The train’s conductor, Mykhailo Karpets, and his assistant, Sergiy Dmytruk, are used to this seven-hour journey and its risks. They have both had close calls. In the early days of the invasion, using trains like this one, they helped evacuate thousands of people.
Now, their routine journeys to the east are part of a crucial lifeline for Ukraine – one that enables family members to visit one another, wounded civilians to retreat to safety and soldiers to travel to and from battle, even as the fighting has intensified.
“At first it was difficult,” said Mr. Karpets, 36. “But we must do it.”
Conductor Mykhailo Karpets sees his work as dangerous but essential. That became clear in the busy evacuations early in the war, like the one shown here by his assistant, Serhii Dmytruk.
The company they work for is Ukraine’s national railway, Ukrzaliznytsia, also known as Ukrainian Railways. At the outset of the war, its trains evacuated more than four million people and about 120,000 animals, and helped deliver humanitarian aid. They have since brought world leaders to Kyiv.
Ukrzaliznytsia trains have re-established links to cities liberated by Ukrainian forces. Rail workers have rebuilt damaged infrastructure, repairing community connections that were severed by war.
Passenger trains run day and night throughout the country, and the stories of the people riding them offer a glimpse of the war’s toll. Among this day’s passengers was 41-year-old Svitlana, with her three-year-old daughter bundled in her arms. She hugged her husband tightly before they parted ways at the station in Kyiv. On the train, the little girl stretched out on Svitlana’s lap.
The two of them were planning to get off at a stop in Poltava, in central Ukraine. Svitlana’s husband is serving with Ukraine’s armed forces in the Kyiv region, and she said she didn’t know when she would see him again, only that it likely wouldn’t be until the new year. “It’s difficult to be apart,” she said. “I worry a lot … my hair has turned white.”
The Globe is identifying Svitlana and others who are connected to the Ukrainian military by their first names only, or by no names at all, to protect their safety.
A Ukrainian soldier at the Kyiv station says goodbye to his wife, Svitlana, and their three-year-old daughter as they board the train to go to Poltava. He is unsure when he will be able to see them again.
Kateryna Hunko, a 22-year-old artist, stood by the train’s exit, anxious to ensure she wouldn’t miss her stop in Poltava. Ms. Hunko fled Irpin an hour before Russian forces occupied it in spring 2022, and has been living in London ever since. She was on her way to visit her grandmother. “I didn’t plan to come back. It was by accident, because I was depressed and I was drunk, so I bought a ticket. Later in the morning, when I realized I had bought tickets to Ukraine, I was so happy I was jumping,” she said. “I’m on my native ground, finally.”
As passengers exited the train at stops along the way, those remaining were mostly soldiers heading to fight, or relatives going to visit other soldiers.
A 28-year-old woman waited in line at the train’s café. She was a combat medic, heading to Kramatorsk to rejoin her unit on the front line, after a break. Tattoos covered her arms, among them designs she said were tributes to two of her friends who had been killed in battle. She said she wasn’t scared of being on the front line, but that it has been difficult treating her wounded comrades. “Your hands are shaking, because they’re your closest friends,” she said.
Her brigade has liberated villages around Bakhmut, she said, but she couldn’t find the words to describe what that was like. To her, it wasn’t comparable to anything in civilian life. “All of these counteroffensives smell like people’s flesh. It’s not very woo-hoo,” she said.
Another soldier, a 37-year-old man, leaned against a window. His break had also ended, and he was returning to the front line near Bakhmut. He said he was nervous to return, but had to go back because his comrades were desperate for their own breaks.
When shelling is constant, he said, “We feel nothing, we just pray.”
A medic on the train has tattoos depicting four generations of a military family, and tributes to two fallen comrades. She struggles to find words to describe their work liberating villages near Bakhmut. 'All of these counteroffensives smell like people’s flesh. It’s not very woo-hoo.'
Ukrzaliznytsia is Ukraine’s largest employer, with 230,000 workers across the country. Right now, about 10,000 of them are serving in the army. The company has suffered losses. Anastasia Zolotarova, a Ukrzaliznytsia spokesperson, said 438 railway workers have been killed and 1,116 have been injured since the beginning of the war – some at work, others at home. It’s impossible to calculate the number of attacks on trains and train infrastructure, she added, since many have happened in occupied territories.
The route from Kyiv to Kramatorsk is one of the railway’s most popular, according to Ms. Zolotarova, because it carries soldiers heading east and family members visiting them. She explained that the trains that make this trip are among Ukrzaliznytsia’s best. “They’re new, they have an onboard café with food, you can watch TV. It’s a very comfortable train. We decided that this train will go to Kramatorsk as a symbol that we bring connection to the de-occupied and the blackout cities,” she said.
She added that the national railway has launched initiatives to help the war effort. Ukrzaliznytsia is planning a special train that will operate as a kitchen and bring hot meals to de-occupied territories, and to regions without water and electricity.
The railway also helps the war effort in more subtle ways. Ms. Zolotarova referred to this as “iron diplomacy.”
“All of the leaders of the free world were passengers of Ukrainian Railways,” she said, adding that she had accompanied Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on two occasions.
To make the best of this access to policy makers, train staff will sometimes employ symbolism. “When we needed Leopard tanks, our train staff wore little scarves with leopards,” Ms. Zolotarova said, adding that this was one example among many. “This list can be continued indefinitely,” she said. “All you need to know about Ukrzaliznytsia is that, since the beginning of the war, we have taken on the unusual role of the ‘road of life’ for the whole country. … Now our goal is to continue doing everything that brings our country closer to victory.”
Tiorda, a Portuguese volunteer medic, gets off in Kramatorsk with the dog she adopted in Severodonetsk.
Anna holds roses while saying goodbye to her husband, a Ukrainian soldier she married close to the front lines the day before.
The train finally came to a halt in Kramatorsk. The platform was full of people saying goodbye: a grandmother in tears, parting with her grandson; a husband off to war, trembling as he kissed his wife goodbye.
One couple had married the day before. Anna, the bride, stood on the platform holding roses. They’d had the ceremony close to the front. She had brought her wedding dress, she said, but didn’t end up wearing it in public.
“I understood that it’s not a good idea to wear it,” she said. “I put it on only for him.” Her husband, a soldier who was about to return to his position, said he is always nervous. “There can be no tomorrow. That’s why you shouldn’t postpone marriage,” he said.
And then, on the platform, there was Ludmyla Velyka, a 59-year-old woman wearing a bright orange vest, who has worked at the station in Kramatorsk for 40 years. She wasn’t there during the attack on the station in 2022, because she had fled to Poland for nine months. But when she returned she went back to work.
Her husband, she explained, is 63 years old. “He served in the army before the full-scale invasion, and when we came back, he got a proposal to serve one last time and he said yes. And I decided to also come back,” she said.
Ms. Velyka said she needs to put in just one more year before she can retire with a pension. In the meantime, she said, it’s difficult living under the constant threat of shelling.
“Some people say, ‘we’re used to it,’ but I can’t get used to it,” she said. “For me it’s always a scary moment.”
A soldier says goodbye to relatives at the Kramatorsk station.
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