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Infrastructure ministry: Ukraine has no right to block transit of goods

Earlier on Friday representatives of Ukraine’s organization called Freedom declared renewal of a Ukraine-wide action to block transit of Russian trucks through Ukraine

© Anton Vergun/TASS

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Russia to file suit to WTO against Ukraine if no agreement is reached on transit shipments

KIEV, February 26. /TASS/. Ukraine’s government has no right to block international transit of goods through its territory, department director at Ukraine’s infrastructure ministry Roman Khmil said in an interview aired by the 112 Ukraine news channel on Friday.

"Unlike bilateral shipments transit is not an exclusive province of Ukraine for it to block it. This is an international trade system. Countries have agreed that transit will be free. Those transit goods running through Ukrainian territory are often not Russian even in case Russian trucks carry them," Khmil said, adding that "the discussion about bilateral shipments between Ukraine and Russia continue."

Meanwhile earlier on Friday representatives of Ukraine’s organization called Freedom declared renewal of a Ukraine-wide action to block transit of Russian trucks through Ukraine.

As was reported earlier on February 12, radical Ukrainian activists operating in Mokrany-Domanovo blocked entry into Ukraine to trucks with Russian license plates and plates of other states shipping Russian goods. A day earlier, radicals including former participants in the Ukrainian military crackdown on the eastern Donbass region launched a similar protest action to disrupt the transit of Russian heavy trucks.

Russia responded with February 14 suspension of Ukrainian truck transits through Russia. On February 15, Ukraine’s government officially suspended transit shipments for heavy trucks registered in Russia. The countries agreed to introduce "back home" regime in the period between February 16 and February 25, which enabled truck drivers to finish hauls.

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