On Saturday night, over 250 Russian and Belarusian trucks were refused entry into Lithuania following the EU’s fifth package of sanctions against the two countries. Meanwhile, unprecedented queues of trucks have formed on the Lithuanian side of the border with Belarus.
According to the Customs Department, the queues at the Lithuanian border with Belarus have never been so long before. There are around 670 trucks lined up at the Raigardas checkpoint, a similar number waiting at the Medininkai checkpoint, over 700 at Šalčininkai, and another 400 at Lavoriškės.
“Throughout my time working in the customs, I have never before come across such quantities,” said Rolandas Jurgaitis, Senior Advisor of the Customs Procedures Division.
“There have never been such severe sanctions on anyone, not even North Korea has such sanctions as Russia has now, and we at the eastern border have to ensure the control,” he added.
The fifth EU sanctions package, which came into force on Saturday night, bans carriers registered in Russia and Belarus from loading cargo in the EU. The trucks still on the EU territory were given seven days to leave.
On Poland’s border with Belarus, queues of trucks have formed after one post was closed for repairs following a clash with migrants, while another has been blocked since mid-March by pro-Ukrainian protesters and war refugees from Ukraine.
“In Poland, one checkpoint is closed, another is blocked. [The trucks] cannot go through Ukraine because there is a war going on there, so all the European goods are going to the East through us, and not only through Lithuania but also Latvia,” Jurgaitis said.
According to him, the trucks have to wait for up to five days at the Lithuania-Belarus border.
“It depends on how we inspect the goods because people are actually trying to carry sanctioned goods without licences and permits, so we have to accept this reality,” he said.
In the two days since the sanctions came into force, more than 250 trucks from Belarus and Russia that planned to load goods in the EU have been refused entry into Lithuania.
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