On the sidelines of the Ukraine Recovery Conference (URC 2026) in Gdańsk, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko held negotiations with the president of the board of Polish Pesa Bydgoszcz, Krzysztof Zdzarski. The format of the meeting is indicative: not a protocol handshake, but a substantive conversation about three separate directions of cooperation simultaneously.
What was discussed
According to Interfax-Ukraine, the parties discussed the supply of new trams, the organization of major assembly in Kyiv, and the creation of a service center. The latter is planned on the basis of the municipal enterprise "Kyivpastrans" — that is, without building a separate facility, using already existing infrastructure.
"The company is interested in further cooperation with Kyiv. Both regarding the supply of new trams, and in the organization of major assembly in the Ukrainian capital, and in providing tram maintenance services."
Vitali Klitschko, Mayor of Kyiv, Telegram post summarizing the negotiations
The logic behind it
Currently, 57 Pesa trams operate on Kyiv's routes — the first batch arrived in 2015–2016, the second, 37 cars, in 2017–2018. That means the oldest of them are already over ten years old. Major assembly is a model where a tram is not transported ready-made across several borders, but assembled locally from large components: body, chassis, and electrical systems. For the manufacturer — it's a market and customer loyalty; for the city — jobs and cheaper maintenance.
Context matters: Kyiv is simultaneously purchasing Tatra-Yugo trams using funds from the European Investment Bank as part of the "Urban Public Transport of Ukraine" project. That means Pesa is entering a non-empty market — it competes with already signed contracts for Ukrainian cars.
What this means in practice
- Assembly in Kyiv — if agreed, this would be the first such precedent for a foreign tram manufacturer in Ukraine during the war.
- Service center at "Kyivpastrans" — reduces dependence on imported spare parts and decreases downtime for tram repairs.
- New supplies — without quantities and prices so far: negotiations are recorded as "interest," not a signed contract.
This is precisely where the key difference lies between what happened in Gdańsk and how it sounds in KMDA communications. The meeting is real, Pesa's interest is real too. But no LOI, no parameters of the future agreement have been publicly announced.
If Kyiv truly signs an agreement on major assembly by the end of 2025, it will become the first step toward partial localization of tram production in the active phase of war — and a signal for other European rolling stock manufacturers. But so far, the only thing signed is a protocol of intent in the form of the mayor's Telegram post.
