Coal Crisis Paralyzes Russian Railways
2- 20.04.2025, 3:50
- 10,430
Ukrainian intelligence has revealed details.
The crisis in the coal industry in Russia is deepening, which is already seriously affecting rail transportation. Due to a shortage of cargo, hundreds of thousands of rail cars are idle.
This was reported by RBC-Ukraine with a reference to the Foreign Intelligence Service of Ukraine.
The intelligence service noted that the deepening crisis in the coal industry in Russia continues to strike at related sectors of the Russian economy.
“This was especially strongly felt by rail transportation, which suffers from a shortage of cargo — in the first quarter of 2025, the volume of transportation of export coal by Russian railways to the ports of the Azov, Black and Baltic Seas significantly decreased,” the service added.
The main reason for this decline is the inability of coal companies to ensure the declared volumes of deliveries. The share of coal not provided for transportation reached 30% of the pre-ordered amount. Because of this, the railway monopoly is forced to hold on to extra cars that are idle.
As of April 2025, the excess of the railcar fleet in the Russian Federation has already reached 295 thousand units.
“This creates an additional burden on the infrastructure and increases maintenance costs. This situation indicates serious imbalances in the domestic supply chain,” the intelligence service noted.
The Foreign Intelligence Service of Ukraine predicts that sanctions and problems with exports to traditionally highly profitable markets will continue to complicate the functioning of the industry.
“A deepening crisis, in turn, could collapse not only the coal industry, but also the entire transport system of the Russian Federation,” the service concluded.
Also, it recently became known that the volume of freight traffic on Russian railways in 2024 fell to a 15-year low.
Shortages of labor and locomotives have exacerbated capacity problems as Moscow reroutes trade flows from Europe to Asia while continuing its war against Ukraine.
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