VILNIUS, February 14. /TASS/. The lines of heavy trucks at the border crossing stations of border between Lithuania and Belarus are not getting much shorter, Lithuania’s Border Control said on Sunday.
The border service reported between 90 and 440 trucks, mostly with Belarusian and Russian plates, stuck at three border crossing stations, where drivers have to wait up to 48 hours to cross the border.
The drivers bound for Europe, head for Klaipeda to take a ferry. But as they approach the border they see a 2-kilometre line of about 300 heavy trucks, where the waiting time was several days. Now the situation has improved. The DFDS Seaways Klaipeda Company uses another, bigger ferry, which can take across the sea about 70 vehicles. Others are parked at the ferry terminal waiting for their turn.
On February 1, expired permissions for cargo transportation between Russia and Poland. The sides failed to reach a new agreement, thus truck drivers from both countries now cannot cross the border. Besides the Baltic route, Russian drivers have chosen the route to Ukraine and further on to Hungary, Slovakia and so forth. The trucks, heading for the West, use the Klaipeda port. The cargo from Poland for Russia is delivered to Lithuania, where it is reloaded onto trucks with Russian plates. Lithuanian companies do not deny the temporary closed transit between Russia and Poland turned out to bring big revenues to the country.
Ukraine’s TV channel "112" reported on Sunday groups of civilians are blocking movement of heavy trucks with Russian plates at practically all customs in Western Ukraine.
On December 30, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin signed a law suspending a free trade zone agreement with Ukraine as the free trade zone agreement between Ukraine and the EU came into force. From 2016, Russia also limited transit of Ukrainian goods across its territory.