Despite the shelling that has pounded Ukraine throughout the day, rail passenger services have resumed between Izium, an eastern city recently recaptured by Ukrainian forces, and Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city, in the northeast.

Under difficult conditions, the railway workers managed the feat of restoring this railway connection after a seven-month interruption caused by the Russian offensive.

“The trains run twice a day, every day”assured Andrei Gadiatsky, the director of Izium Railways, standing in the rain in front of the barred windows of the partially burned station.

For some residents of this region, which is at the heart of fighting on the Eastern Front, it is the way to finally have access to basic necessities. “It will allow them to go to Kharkiv to use their bank cards”underlined Mr. Gadiatsky.

There is no power for the locomotives that once served the network in eastern Ukraine, and Russian missiles still regularly hit Kharkiv marshalling yards. But a Ukrainian DPKr-3 diesel train that once shuttled between Kyiv and the international airport in the Ukrainian capital Boryspil has been put back into service… 600 kilometers to the east.

The route includes stops in former frontline towns such as Savyntsi, Tsyganska and Balakliia.

One passenger, Maria Tymofienko, has not been to Balakliya since the beginning of the war. “I’m 73 years old and I always have to ride my bike because the buses don’t run”she told AFP, aboard the train as it meanders through forested hills under a gray sky.

She hopes that Balakliia, where she has family, will give her a break from Izioum, which is now in ruins.

“Yesterday my granddaughter called me and said, ‘Grandmother, I checked the internet and the train to Balakliia will start running again tomorrow.’ And I said, ‘Okay, okay, I’ll take it'”.

“I have no hope. Whether it’s like Izioum I don’t know. Here they broke into my apartment, my garage. You stole everything. They ate all my canned goods. They took all the tools.”She said. “So many people died under the rubble. Apartments were destroyed, schools. It was terrifying”she continued.