ROAD FREIGHT TRANSPORTATION IN TURBULENT CONDITIONS IN UKRAINE: LOGISTICS TRANSFORMATION, FOREIGN TRADE THREATS AND CHALLENGES
Abstract
The full-scale russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022 was just such an event for the transport and logistics industry, as there are things that change the industry gradually - new technologies, changes in the regulatory framework, fluctuations in demand. Before the conflict, Ukraine had a balanced freight transportation system: maritime transport provided most of the foreign trade turnover, railways held the lion's share of domestic flows, and road transport organically complemented both. This balance disappeared in a few weeks: ports are blocked, the sky is closed, some roads and bridges are destroyed or are in a combat zone. In the current conditions, road transport has become the main channel through which Ukraine maintains contact with the outside world. The issue of the functioning of transport in conditions of armed conflicts has relatively rarely come into the focus of academic research - mostly due to the lack of available data and the extreme dynamism of situations. It is road transport - with food, medicines, building materials, equipment - that crosses the borders with Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Hungary and Moldova every day. At the same time, the railway has not faded into the background - on the contrary, Ukrzaliznytsia has become a strategic backbone of internal logistics and an indispensable partner in building multimodal supply chains. By 2022, more than 60% of export and import cargo turnover was carried out through sea transport. In June 2022, an agreement entered into force between Ukraine and the European Union, which was quickly dubbed "visa-free transport" by the people. When these channels were closed, carriers, cargo owners and logistics operators had very little time to react - and yet the response was surprisingly fast. Gradually, the load was partially distributed between several crossings, but the problem of throughput remains relevant today. The author's research is based on official statistics of the State Statistics Service, materials of the Ministry of Community and Territorial Development, data of JSC "Ukrzaliznytsia" and analytics of specialized organizations.
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