Security at ZRSM Transport caught people attempting to spray graffiti on railway property. Drawing materials were found on them - and dog food, with which they most likely intended to distract the guard dogs.

That detail is what separates the story from ordinary vandalism. Dog food brought to the site means somebody knew in advance there were guard dogs there and prepared for them. That is not an impulse at three in the morning - that is a plan.

The case was made public by the company's general director Dejan Koshutikj in a post on social media. It was reported immediately and handed over to the competent police authorities. "Every attempt to damage state property will be duly reported and prosecuted. Public property is the property of all of us," he said.

Enhanced surveillance - announced after the incident

ZRSM Transport says that in the coming period it will significantly strengthen security measures and video surveillance at all facilities and across the company's entire rolling stock.

This time everything worked: the service reacted in time, the attempt was stopped, the case was handed over. The question is why enhanced video surveillance arrives as a reaction rather than as the existing state of affairs at a company managing state-owned rolling stock.

Anyone who has travelled on a Macedonian train has seen the carriages covered in graffiti. That did not happen in one night and it did not happen in one place. Some of those attempts clearly were not stopped - and nobody has yet said how much it costs to return one carriage to its original state, or how many such carriages are in the fleet.

That is the number missing from the statement. Without it, "public property is the property of all of us" remains a nice sentence with no price underneath it.