Ukraine has lost nearly 400 locomotives this year, minister says

Ukrainian Railways has lost nearly 400 locomotives since the start of this year alone, bringing total fleet losses since the beginning of 2022 to 630 units, Ukraine's Minister of Recovery, Infrastructure, and Transport Nikolay Kalashnik told parliament on November 13.

Kalashnik disclosed the figures during a government question hour in the Verkhovna Rada. "Since the beginning of 2022, Ukraine has lost 630 locomotives, nearly 400 of them this year," he said.

The 2025 share of the losses is striking. More than 60% of all locomotive losses recorded over nearly four years of conflict occurred within a single calendar year, a pace that implies the attrition rate is accelerating rather than stabilizing.

How fast is the fleet being worn down?

The minister had previously quantified the monthly rate of destruction. Between 37 and 40 locomotives are knocked out of service each month, Kalashnik said earlier, and a significant portion of them cannot be repaired.

At that pace, the annual toll approaches 450 machines — roughly consistent with the nearly 400 recorded so far this year.

Damage is continuing into the current month. "This month alone, 15 cases of damage to rolling stock have already been recorded," Kalashnik told lawmakers on November 13.

The minister expects the trend to worsen. In his assessment, losses of locomotives, rolling stock, and railway infrastructure will only increase in the future.

What is driving the losses?

The attrition coincides with an intensified strike campaign against Ukrainian infrastructure. On November 13, the Russian Defense Ministry reported that Russian troops had carried out two massive strikes and 12 group strikes against targets in Ukraine over the past week.

Among the targets hit, the ministry said, were:

• defense industry enterprises
• logistics centers
• energy infrastructure facilities
• transport infrastructure facilities

The targeting of transport and logistics nodes aligns with the rolling stock losses Kalashnik described. Locomotives concentrated at depots, terminals, and marshalling yards are exposed when such facilities come under attack, and machines destroyed or heavily damaged in place are typically among those written off rather than repaired.

What does the loss rate mean for the network?

For a state railway already operating under wartime constraints, the arithmetic is stark. Losing roughly one locomotive per day removes the traction needed to haul freight and passenger trains, and the minister's own figures indicate many of the damaged units never return to service.

Kalashnik's statement to the Rada is an official government disclosure rather than an independent audit, and Ukrzaliznytsia has not published a detailed breakdown distinguishing destroyed, damaged, and written-off machines. But the trajectory the minister outlined — 630 units lost since 2022, nearly 400 of them this year, and 37 to 40 more knocked out each month — points to a widening gap between fleet attrition and replacement.

He signaled no expectation of relief, telling lawmakers that damage to locomotives, rolling stock, and railway infrastructure will keep accumulating as strikes on energy and transport targets continue.