European Leaders Are Latest to Take Ukraine's VIP Train to Meet Zelensky

French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, and Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi travelled together on a special Ukrainian train originally created for holidaying oligarchs, just the latest world leaders to have made the pilgrimage to Kyiv to meet with President Volodymyr Zelensky.

European leaders of France, Germany, Italy, and Romania coalesced in Kyiv, Ukraine Thursday to meet with President Volodymyr Zelensky. The meeting may represent a thawing, in a sense, of relations between France and Ukraine, which has been strained over President Macron’s longstanding attempts to negotiate with Russia.

Macron’s talks with Russia have invited by turns amusement, bemusement, and scorn from leaders including Zelensky in recent months. In February, just weeks before Russia launched its renewed invasion into Ukraine, Macron returned from Moscow, having met personally with President Putin, boasting of the promises he had got that there would be no escalation.

Just last month, Zelensky criticised Macron for his continued attempts to negotiate peace with Putin. Zelensky said his French counterpart was toiling “in vain” and that “I know he wanted to get results from mediation between Russia and Ukraine, but he didn’t get any.”

Macron’s tone was harder today. As well as meeting with Ukraine’s Zelensky, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Romanian President Klaus Iohannis, and Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi, Macron also toured areas where there had been heavy fighting.

Visiting Irpin, a Ukrainian town in a region where Russian troops have been accused of genocide, Macron said of what he witnessed with Scholz and Draghi: “We saw a devastated city and a mark of barbarism. And also the heroism of Ukrainian men and women who stopped the Russian army when it attacked Kyiv. Ukraine is resisting. It must be able to win.”

Like dozens of other world leaders and politicians, and even pop culture figures, Macron, Scholz, and Draghi forewent the usual means of travel for elite leaders in a hurry — air travel — to drop into Ukraine by train. Given the enormous risk to VIPs flying in contested airspace, and particularly airspace near Russians, a new norm in Eastern Europe of world leaders jetting into Poland and then taking a train to Kyiv appears to have developed.

The special VIP carriages, which comprise of conference table room, two bedrooms or offices, and a kitchen for staff to prepare meals were created for wealthy tourists or businessmen travelling shortly before Russia’s invasion in 2014. Intended to run the route down to Sevastopol attached to regular trains as a private bubble for those that could afford it, the occupation of that region meant the carriages were never put into use.

At least three of the special coaches were built, and featured interior decoration schemes which varied from the relatively modest shaker style to all-out gold opulence that might be better described as Oligarch chic, as befitted their original intended customers. Russia’s attack and occupation of the Crimea limited their use until now, as they ferry politicians in and out of Ukraine.

Among those who have ridden the special coaches in recent months are EU Presidents Ursula von der Leyen, Roberta Metsola, and Charles Michel, Nancy Pelosi, Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Bulgaria’s Prime Minister Kiril Petkov, Anthony Blinken, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, and Poland’s Andrzej Duda.

While trains are less vulnerable to devastating strikes than highly visible passenger aircraft, perhaps, they are not immune. The chief executive of Ukraine’s railways, who organises the special trains that carry politicians in and out of the country, told CNN in March that he keeps the timings and locations of trains secret, so Russian forces can’t attempt to take them out.

This work is for nothing, however, compared to the apparently irresistible urge to tweet. The former KPMG man turned rail boss expressed his surprise when a group of politicians including the Polish Prime Minister tweeted about their journey while they were still on the secret train, inviting Russian attention. “…it surprised me. I didn’t understand that”, he said.