Governor: Kaliningrad reaches Lithuania’s railway transit limits

MOSCOW, Aug 9 (PRIME) -- Russia’s Kaliningrad Region has reached the limits of the railway transit set by Lithuania, Governor Anton Alikhanov said during a discussion of the Valdai Club on Tuesday.

“As of today, we have already reached the limits set by the Europeans for railway deliveries of such cargoes as some kinds of iron, steel, oil and oil products, fertilizers, antifreezing agents, timber,” he said.

“There is a wide range of products that we cannot ship anymore because of the restrictions.”

The Foreign Ministry’s ambassador at large Alexei Isakov said that the E.U.’s attempts to regulate economic relations between the Kaliningrad Region and mainland Russia is gross meddling in the internal affairs although the government has managed to avoid the worst scenario.

Lithuania is worsening the situation as it does not want to tackle the problem of payments and financial servicing of the deliveries, he also said.

Isakov added that Russia plans to continue attempts to settle the conflict, but has already designed retaliatory measures, which it can introduce in case the situation deteriorates.

Moscow demands that Vilnius should completely lift the limits on railway transit to Kaliningrad including passenger transportation, the ambassador said.

In June, the Lithuanian railways notified the Kaliningrad railways about termination of transit of some goods, sanctioned by the E.U. But later, the shipments were partially permitted, according to an additional guidance issued by the European Commission.

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