Lithuania seized over 30 wagons of sanctioned products by Russia’s oil giant Lukoil and returned them back to Belarus. Three more wagons are detained at the border.
“Overnight alone, 25 fake Lukoil wagons tried to enter the Kaliningrad region, claiming to be transit cargo [...], but in reality they were destined for export. We turned them around and we returned them back,” Edvinas Kerza, business resilience director at Lietuvos Geležinkeliai (Lithuanian Railways, LTG), the country’s state-owned railway company, told reporters on Wednesday.
“Seven Lukoil wagons tried to enter Marijampolė overnight. We turned them around and sent them back,” he added.
According to Kerza, three more wagons have been detained on the border with Belarus and decision on them are pending.
Kotryna Dzikaraitė, spokeswoman for LTG, later clarified that all the detained shipments of Lukoil petroleum products passed through the Kena border crossing.
Kerza said that two shipments from Latvia had also been detained.
In his words, the detained shipments included petroleum products, chip, fertilisers, seeds, wood, pellets and other groups of sanctioned goods. Contracts with companies that repeatedly try to circumvent the EU’s sanctions will be terminated, Kerza said.
Moreover, LTG also plans to publish weekly data on detained shipments.
“I have sent five appeals to the prosecution service with all the details and evidence of how companies are falsifying documents and trying to evade the sanctions,” Kerza said.
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