EUROPE: The reinstated 23 km railway linking Berezyne in Ukraine to Basarabeasca in Moldova was reopened on August 22.
The line provides a rail connection from the Bilhorod-Dnistrovskyi – Izmail line in the southern part of Odesa oblast to the River Danube port of Reni, transiting Moldova and facilitating onward links to Romania. Approximately 22 km of the route is in Ukraine and 1·2 km in Moldova.
Moldova’s national railway CFM said the reopening would make Basarabeasca into an international logistics hub for ports in Ukraine, Moldova and Romania.
‘This railway is a line of solidarity between Moldova and Ukraine’, said Moldovan Deputy Prime Minister Andrei Spînu at the reopening ceremony. ‘It will allow the development of bilateral commercial relations with our strategic partners in Ukraine, but also help solve the road traffic problems that have arisen in recent months.’
Reinstatement
The cross-border line had closed in 1997, and various plans for reopening fell through.
Following the Russian attack on Ukraine in February, Moldova’s Ministry of Infrastructure & Regional Development and Ukraine’s Ministry of Infrastructure signed a memorandum of understanding to reinstate the line in Basarabeasca on June 23. Reopening had been envisaged for early autumn, but in the event the reconstruction work took less than two months.
Ukraine is currently restoring two other previously abandoned cross-border routes to Poland and Romania.
