The EU and Russia have reportedly agreed on the transit of goods to the Russian exclave region of Kaliningrad, according to the Izvestia newspaper on Wednesday, July 13, with reference to the high-ranking Russian sources, adding that Brussels provided a document that “completely satisfied” Moscow.
“This document says that it is impossible to restrict the transit of goods between the subjects of the Russian Federation. That is, all goods going to the region will be withdrawn as an exception from the sanctions lists. We are talking about both railway and road transit,” the source said.
As reminded, the EU banned Russia-registered trucks in early April but made an exemption for those transiting to Kaliningrad, which is located on the Baltic Sea coast. The current restrictions on the transit of Russian goods, announced by Lithuania, apply to all transit of goods sanctioned by the EU. Lithuanian Railways notified the Kaliningrad region’s railway of halting the transit of a number of goods subject to EU sanctions on June 18.
Kremlin Spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said that Russia is considering various options for responding to Lithuania’s “unfriendly” move. Kaliningrad Region Governor, Anton Alikhanov, said that the restrictions would not affect the transit of oil products at least until August 10 and that the region would mobilize its ferry fleet to compensate for railroad cargo cuts.
According to the Izvestia source, the coordination of the final document between the EU and Lithuania on agreement about the transit of goods from Russia to the Kaliningrad region has been going on for several weeks.
However, TASS reports that the authorities of the Kaliningrad region have not yet received official notifications and documents on the lifting of restrictions on the transit of goods from the regions of Russia through Lithuania to the region.
“At the moment, there are no official statements from the Russian or European side [in the regional government]. The documents were also not published,” head of the press service, Dmitry Lyskov, said.
He added that the Kaliningrad authorities are waiting to see the document Izvestia told about, specifying that they “will be satisfied only with the full resumption of transit in the form it was before June 17.”
Ru-Main, 13.07.2022
Source: Sputnik
