According to the latest figures, freight loading volumes on the network owned by Russian Railways in June 2025 amounted to 89.3 million tons, which is 9.2% less than in the same month last year.

Freight turnover in June 2025 decreased by 2.1% compared to June last year and amounted to 200.4 billion tariff ton-km. Freight turnover taking into account empty wagon runs during the same month decreased by 1.8% and totalled 248 billion ton-km.

According to the latest figures, freight loading volumes from January to June 2025 amounted to 554.5 million tons, which is 7.6% less than in the same six-month period last year.

The following categories and quantities of cargo were loaded onto rail from January – June 2025. Figures in brackets show the percentage changes compared to January – June 2024.

• coal – 163.1 million tons (-3.6%);
• coke – 5.1 million tons (-14.5%);
• oil and petroleum products – 99.1 million tons (-5%);
• iron and manganese ore – 53.8 million tons (-0.9%);
• ferrous metals – 26.7 million tons (-17.2%);
• ferrous metal scrap – 3.8 million tons (-32.2%);
• chemical and mineral fertilisers – 35.5 million tons (+4.8%);
• cement – ​​9.8 million tons (-15.2%);
• timber – 13.3 million tons (-4.5%);
• grain – 10.1 million tons (-36.4%);
• construction materials – 46.5 million tons (-19.5%);
• non-ferrous ore and sulphur feedstock – 8.5 million tons (+2.9%);
• chemicals and soda – 10.3 million tons (-3.2%);
• industrial raw materials and moulded materials – 13.5 million tons (-19.1%);
• miscellaneous, including containerised cargo – 55.3 million tons (-7.8%).

Freight turnover since the beginning of 2025 fell by 1% compared to the same period last year and totalled 1249.9 billion tariff ton-km. Freight turnover taking into account empty wagon runs during the six months of 2025 decreased by 0.8% and amounted to 1549 billion ton-km.

Against the backdrop of favourable market conditions between January and June, fertiliser loading volumes increased to a new record level, rising by 4.8% compared to the first half of 2024, with 27.9% going for export.

Freight shipments along the most popular eastern route increased by 2.6%. At the same time, there was an increase in the transportation of both coal, up by 2.3%, and non-coal cargo, which rose by 3.5%, including fertilisers, which saw an increase of 75.3%, and ferrous metals, up 1.2%, iron ore, a rise of 14.3%, as well as other high value-added cargo transported in containers, which increase by 7.9%.

Due to the decline in demand on the Russian domestic market, the loading of construction materials fell across the Russian Railways’ network as a whole by19.7%, while ferrous metals were down 25.8% and scrap metal 31.8%). Due to repairs at a number of oil refineries, the shipment of oil cargo decreased by 5%.

With regard to exports, negative dynamics were caused by a decrease in the presentation of grain cargoes, which was down by 57.1%. This was due to a reduction in the gross harvest. Coal was down by 2.5% due to the continuing decline in world quotations.

Significant losses in volumes were due to the failure to present cargoes for transportation applications which has already been agreed. In the first half of the year, shippers refused to load 5.4 million tons of coal in the direction of Russia’s ports in the North-West, and 2.1 million tons in the direction of the ports in the South. The same reason meant that the parameters of the agreement on the export of coal from Kuzbass to the East were not underperformed by 0.82 million tons.

At the same time, due to the late refusal of shippers from the planned transportation in limiting directions, the possibilities of using the capacity thus reserved for sending other cargo were significantly reduced.