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Putin not planning to visit Kaliningrad yet, his spokesman says

The Kaliningrad Region has been under a blockade since June 18, when Lithuania banned the transit of sanctioned goods carried by rail from other Russian regions

MOSCOW, July 7. /TASS/. Russian President Vladimir Putin is not planning to make a working visit to Kaliningrad yet, his spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Thursday.

"Anything could happen in the near future, and yet Kaliningrad is not on the president’s itinerary," the Kremlin spokesman said, when asked if Putin could visit Russia’s Baltic exclave any time soon.

The Kaliningrad Region has been under a blockade since June 18, when Lithuania banned the transit of sanctioned goods carried by rail from other Russian regions. Reports came on June 21 that the prohibition was also expanded to cover truck transit.

Russia says it has been mulling a response. The authorities in Kaliningrad have said they will settle for nothing else than the lifting of the current ban. Lithuania insists it did not impose any unilateral or additional sanctions, but has been consistently enforcing the EU’s sanctions regime.