More than half of the transport that Kyiv received from benefactors and partner cities is still not operating on its routes. Of the hundred buses donated to Kyivpastrans, only about 60 are on the streets. The rest are parked in parks or have disappeared from reports altogether. The situation is similar with metro cars: out of 60 donated by Warsaw, only a third are running. This is stated in the investigation of the YouTube project “In the Shadow of the Chestnut”.
According to journalists, some of the equipment is stored with foreign license plates because it has not been registered, some buses need repair, and several dozen more are simply “in reserve.” The Kyiv City State Administration explains this by bureaucratic procedures, lack of technical passports, and equipment with accounting systems, but for several years now, the promises have not been fulfilled.
According to Oleksandr Grechko, co-founder of the "Passengers of Kyiv" initiative, the problem also lies in the shortage of drivers: after the start of the full-scale war, many went to the front, and large-scale programs to attract new personnel, including women, were never created.
The fate of the double-decker buses donated by Berlin is particularly indignant. In Kyiv, they were listed as “excursion” and were never put on the line, although in Germany they operated on regular routes. The story is similar with the metro cars: some became “donors” for the old rolling stock, although the authorities had previously shown these trains in PR videos.
Journalists note that in other cities of Ukraine — Mykolaiv, Odessa, Dnipro, or Kharkiv — charity buses and cars have been integrated into the transport network, while in Kyiv they are gathering dust. Experts emphasize that without changing approaches to organizing public transport, the capital risks facing a transport collapse.
