KALININGRAD, November 28. /TASS/. The passage of rented trucks from the Kaliningrad region to Russia’s mainland through the territory of Lithuania was stopped over the weekend.

As Leonid Stepanyuk, chairman of the public council under the Infrastructure Development Ministry of the Kaliningrad Region and general director of the Rustransservice carrier company, told TASS on Monday, the problem may affect 25-30% of trucks, which were rented by Kaliningrad carriers.

"This happened from Saturday to Sunday, there is a decree of the Lithuanian Ministry of Transport. According to it, if a carrier company has rented a truck, then it is not allowed to pass. The situation is as follows: a carrier company registers the cargo and CMR and enters the territory of Lithuania. In Lithuania, they see that the actual owner of the vehicle in the certificate of registration is an individual. They consider it as a violation, they believe that the same owner should be everywhere and send the truck back [to Kaliningrad region]," Stepanyuk said.

He added that, according to information he received from the customs authorities, on the night from Saturday to Sunday alone at the border with Lithuania they did not allow 17 trucks to pass through, instead sending them back to the Kaliningrad region.

"I believe that 25-30% of the cars from Kaliningrad carriers are rented," Stepanyuk said, responding to a request to assess the scale of the problem that Kaliningrad carriers may face. According to him, the situation does not apply to cars that are leased from carriers, since in this case the documents for the car indicate that the company is the temporary owner of the truck until the vehicle is bought from the lessor.

Stepanyuk also noted that he considers it necessary to develop ferry transportation between the Kaliningrad region and other regions of Russia to solve this problem.

Kaliningrad transit issue

Currently, there are restrictions on road freight transportation by land from the Kaliningrad region to other regions of Russia due to EU sanctions.

In particular, trucks passing through Lithuania are banned from transporting goods that are on EU sanctions lists. For example, building materials such as cement are prohibited from being transported by trucks.

Also, trucks purchased abroad and cleared by customs only in the Kaliningrad region without paying full duties are prohibited from transporting goods between regions of Russia without returning to Kaliningrad. In this situation carriers are suffering losses. It is currently possible to deliver cargo by truck from the Kaliningrad region to another region of Russia without restrictions only with the help of a ferry that goes through the Baltic Sea.

The regional authorities previously allocated 166.8 million rubles ($2.7 mln) from the reserve fund to subsidize the transport tax for trucks cleared by customs only in the region. The governor of the Kaliningrad region, Anton Alikhanov, also said that he supported the initiative of regional lawmakers to apply to the federal government with a request to allow such vehicles to operate in other regions of Russia. At the same time, the governor called for the development of restrictions for such vehicles so that they return to the region.