The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development has signed an agreement releasing €130 million in emergency liquidity support for Ukrainian Railways (UZ), as Russian strikes on ports, rail infrastructure and increasingly on locomotives drive up the operator's costs and strain its logistics network.

EBRD President Odile Renaud-Basso and Ukraine's Minister of Recovery, Infrastructure and Transport Mykola Kalashnyk signed the deal, which the bank says should help UZ maintain essential freight and passenger services while supporting the company's financial resilience and its reform programme.

What is driving the cash injection?

UZ is operating under sustained attack. Speaking at InnoTrans in Berlin, the company's CEO said Russia has increasingly been targeting locomotives — a shift that directly raises operational costs for a carrier already coping with strikes on ports and the wider railway system.

The €130 million package addresses liquidity rather than fleet renewal: the funds are designed to keep trains running and to underpin UZ's reform agenda while wartime damage to rolling stock and infrastructure continues to accumulate.

What did Ukraine and Romania agree?

A Ukrainian delegation led by Kalashnyk visited Romania to discuss rail transportation among a broader set of logistics issues. The meeting took place in Constanța, the Black Sea port city that has become Ukraine's nearest available safe seaport since Russian attacks closed off other routes.

Romania currently offers Ukraine six daily train services to the port. The two sides agreed to maintain that frequency for now. To allow more Ukrainian trains to reach Constanța, Romania committed to speeding up repairs to port and rail infrastructure.

The talks also covered:

• Priority customs clearance for Ukrainian goods moving through Romania
• A joint information tool to coordinate carriers and port operators
• Potential additional capacity at the Danube river ports of Galați and Brăila, where discussions have been launched but no terms agreed

The commitments on customs clearance and the coordination tool aim to cut dwell times at the border and at the port — the practical bottlenecks that determine how much of the headline train capacity translates into actual throughput for Ukrainian exports.

How solid are the plans?

The six daily services are an operating reality today. The €130 million is a signed agreement. The Danube port capacity at Galați and Brăila, by contrast, remains at the discussion stage, with no volumes, timelines or funding identified. The acceleration of Romanian port and rail repairs is a political commitment without a published schedule.

For UZ, the arithmetic is straightforward. Constanța offers the shortest path to a functioning deep-sea port, and rail is the only mode that can move bulk volumes there at scale. Every additional path and every hour saved at customs expands Ukraine's export capacity while its own Black Sea access remains constrained by attacks.

The €130 million arrives as UZ balances wartime service obligations against rising costs from equipment losses, and both the EBRD facility and the Romanian corridor talks point to continued Western backing for the operator's freight lifeline in the months ahead.