Lithuania ‘ready’ to accept Ukraine’s grain export corridor via Belarus, says minister

On Tuesday, Lithuanian Transport and Communications Minister Marius Skuodis said the country would accept Ukrainian grain arriving for export via Belarus.

"If the world community can talk about the lack of food in the world because it's impossible to export Ukrainian grain, then we need to dare to unblock the ports [of Ukraine] to allow ships to leave,” he told reporters on Tuesday.

“The second option is to use the existing infrastructure and to transport grain via Belarus, which would allow us to use the full capacity of the port of Klaipėda, as well as the capacity of Latvian and Estonian ports. This would require a certain humanitarian corridor via Belarus," he said.

Conversations on such a corridor are underway, the minister said, adding that the negotiations should be the responsibility of international institutions, including the United Nations or the European Commission.

"If a Ukrainian shipment came from Belarus, we would accept it," the transport minister said.

Grain harvest (associative image) | E. Genys/LRT

According to Skuodis, the main problem with transporting Ukrainian grain to Lithuania bypassing Belarus is the undeveloped railway infrastructure, as only two to three trains a day can go to Lithuania via Poland.

"The port of Klaipeda is capable of handling fairly large amounts, some 8 million tons, excluding the Birių Krovinių Terminalas (Bulk Cargo Terminal).” he said. “With investment into capacity, this could be increased. Unfortunately, due to infrastructural constraints in Poland, we can now bring 1-1.5 million tons of Ukrainian grain to Lithuania per year.”

Logistics between Ukraine and Lithuania are also undermined by different railway gauges as the Russian gauge is still used in Ukraine and Lithuania, while the European gauge is used in Poland, meaning that rolling stock needs to be changed when transporting goods.

The state-owned Lithuanian railways, LTG, sent a train to Ukraine in early May and it is scheduled to bring various goods from Ukraine via Poland. If the route proves successful, it will later be used to transport grain.