Any ruskies or anyone familiar with here?

[jaguar]

I'm looking for on-the-ground advice for navigating the russian rail network off the trans-siberian, also looking for the same sort of info in terms of links from Ukraine. Anyone have some experience, fairly recently if possible. While I understand that air is better for some routes I have a strange lack of faith in an airline where the tail of the plane has been known to come off.

I"ll be leaving around June, I'll most likely be in Ukraine for 3-4 weeks on business, after that I'll be heading on to Moscow and be there for a couple of weeks total. I'm more interested in info in terms of getting into Kazahistan and up towards the Kara Sea.