People in Kaliningrad have indulged in panic buying after Lithuania imposed a ban of the sanctioned goods’ transit to the Russian exclave.
“On the first day [of the ban], everyone ran to buy everything en masse,” Pavel Tatarintsev, a Kaliningrad resident, told The Moscow Times.
An unverified video shared on Sunday also showed shoppers loading up on cement at a hardware store in Kaliningrad.
According to the Moscow Times, people in the Russian exclave also rushed to buy gas. Addressing residents on Saturday, Kaliningrad Governor Anton Alikhanov said energy supplies would last until at least August 10 and urged people not to panic buy.
The transit ban is part of the EU’s fourth sanctions package on Russia, which entered into force last weekend. It currently involves steel and other metal products and is due to expand to include cement and alcohol on July 10, coal and other solid fuels on August 10, as well as oil on December 5.
According to Alikhov, Kaliningrad would lose up to 50 percent of its transit goods because of the ban.
“We consider this to be a most serious violation [...] of the right to free transit into and out of Kaliningrad region,” Anton Alikhanov said in a Telegram post on Friday evening.
The bulk of Russian goods is transported to Kaliningrad via rail lines between the exclave and mainland Russia. This means that Russia will now be forced to increase its air and sea shipping traffic to transport sanctioned goods.
Two vessels currently ferry goods between Kaliningrad and St. Petersburg, and seven more will be in operation by the end of the year, Alikhanov said in a video address on Saturday.
But despite official reassurances, many locals fear that the rail blockade could mean not only shortages of certain goods but also accelerating inflation.
“People are concerned that due to the complexity of logistics, the prices of goods will rise. Kaliningrad has changed just like the whole country,” Tatarintsev told the Moscow Times.
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