The orders came from on high, from Ukraine's president and one of his ministers: Get trains running again to the latest city newly retaken by our troops. 

“So literally: tanks, then trains,” said Ukrainian rail network boss Oleksandr Kamyshin, recalling the presidential instructions he received as the southern city of Kherson was being liberated last week, ending eight months of Russian occupation.

Among bitter lessons that Ukrainians have had to learn in the nearly nine months since Russia invaded is that what's here today can be destroyed tomorrow and that nothing in war can be taken for granted.

Except, perhaps, the Ukrzaliznytsia.

The national rail company proudly boasts that 85% of trains ran on schedule last month. Night trains that rattle across the country still welcome customers with hot tea and clean sheets in the sleeping compartments. As well as people, trains carry cargo, aid and gear Ukraine needs to fight. They also are the easiest way for world leaders to meet with President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv, the capital that in war is unreachable by air.

All this despite thousands of missile, bomb and artillery strikes that have crumpled bridges, blown up tracks and, says Kamyshin, killed nearly 300 rail workers and wounded almost 600 others since Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24.

“We are a machine,” Kamyshin said. “We keep running.”