Europe

Ukraine Rail Boss Apologizes for Train Delays Caused by Biden’s ‘Rail Force One’ Kyiv Visit

‘COMPLICATED PROJECT’

“It was painful for me and my team, but I had to do that.”

President Joe Biden walks down a corridor to his cabin on a train after a surprise visit with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Monday, Feb. 20, 2023, in Kyiv.
Evan Vucci/Reuters

The head of Ukraine’s state-owned rail transportation company has apologized for service disruption caused by Joe Biden’s visit to Kyiv Monday aboard “Rail Force One.” Ukrainian Railways CEO Alexander Kamyshin said that being involved in the logistics for the U.S. president’s secret visit to the Ukrainian capital was an “an honor and a privilege for me and the whole team,” a challenge he described as “quite a complicated project.” “I also want to apologize for breaking our OTP (On Time Performance) yesterday,” Kamyshin wrote in a Twitter thread on Tuesday. “We had to delay some of our trains to give a way to #RailForceOne. It was painful for me and my team, but I had to do that. So only 90 percent of our trains arrived on time yesterday. I apologize.”