Only a small part of the coal is sent to Russia by truck.
The rest of the raw materials are exported by rail through a section of the border that is controlled by separatists.
Among the several thousand wagons used for transportation, some belong to the Ukrzaliznytsia company -
the separatists have seized them in Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts.
The wagons are used illegally and from another point of view.
According to Russian legislation, trains manufactured
before 1985 are to be repaired once every 5 years.
Given the time of the beginning of the occupation, this period has long expired,
and the Ukrainian owner had no opportunity to repair the wagons.
However, first of all, trains of Russian Railways and
another Russian state-owned freight company,
FGK, enter the territory of ORDL (Donetsk and Luhansk Regions).
According to the documentation, the freight trains stand on the side tracks of the Gukovo or Uspenskaya border stations in the village
of Avilo-Uspenka. This is reported by the portal "Informpost", which has turned from a Debaltsevo local site into an interesting source of
information about the occupied territory. In July 2019, there were 2,
400 wagons in the entire territory, almost 700 crossed the border daily in both directions, passing only through the Uspenskaya station. The freight cars took out anthracite, metal, and coke and
brought in coal concentrate, gasoline, oil, propane-butane, and iron ore.
There were also more interesting cargoes, for example,
Informpost reported about a salt wagon from Azerbaijan departing from Khirdalan station, not
far from Baku.
You actually make it seem so easy with your presentation but I
find this topic to be really something that I think I would never understand.
It seems too complicated and very broad for me. I'm looking forward for your
next post, I will try to get the hang of it!