Shortly after Russian missiles rained down on Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities on Monday, Oleksandr Kamyshin, head of the state-owned Ukrainian Railways, posted a solemn tweet. “As of 21.00 we have 42 trains delaying [sic],” he observed after a missile landed next to Kyiv’s main station.
Kamyshin went on to explain that 14 trains were more than an hour late, two trains were delayed by between 30 and 60 minutes, and 26 trains by less than 30 minutes. “I feel sorry for [the] inconvenience,” he added. “We do our best to get back on schedule.”
If the situation in Ukraine were not so ghastly — and Russia’s attacks not so brutal — this might read like satire. Particularly for readers in the UK, where trains are famously held up by announcements of “leaves on the line”, or in the US, where the parlous state of Amtrak has long been the butt of jokes and political fights. But Kamyshin is utterly serious, and it is humbling to watch, especially from the peaceful west.