June 19, 2022 1:13 AM GMT+7
A view shows railway tracks at a commercial port in the
Baltic Sea town of Baltiysk in the Kaliningrad region, Russia October 28, 2021.
REUTERS/Vitaly Nevar
VILNIUS, June 18 (Reuters) - Lithuanian
authorities said a ban on the transit through their territory to the Russian
exclave of Kaliningrad of goods that are subject to EU sanctions was to take
effect from Saturday.
News of the ban
came on Friday, through a video posted by the region's governor Anton
Alikhanov. read more
The EU sanctions
list notably includes coal, metals, construction materials and advanced
technology, and Alikhanov said the ban would cover around 50% of the items that
Kaliningrad imports.
Its immediate start was confirmed by the
cargo arm of Lithuania's state railways service in a letter to clients
following "clarification" from the European Commission on the
mechanism for applying the sanctions.
Urging citizens
not to resort to panic buying, Alikhanov said two vessels were already ferrying
goods between Kaliningrad and Saint Petersburg, and seven more would be in
service by the end of the year.
"Our
ferries will handle all the cargo", he said on Saturday.
A spokesman for
Lithuania's rail service confirmed the contents of the letter but declined to
comment further. The foreign ministry did not reply to a request from Reuters
for comment.
Lithuanian
Deputy Foreign Minister Mantas Adomenas told public broadcaster his institution
was waiting for "clarification from the European Commission on applying
European sanctions to Kaliningrad cargo transit".
Sandwiched
between EU and NATO members Poland and Lithuania, Kaliningrad receives supplies
from Russia via rail and gas pipelines through Lithuania.
Home to the
headquarters of Russia's Baltic sea fleet, the enclave was captured from Nazi
Germany by the Red Army in April 1945 and ceded to the Soviet Union after World
War Two.
Reporting by Andrius Sytas in Vilnius; additional reporting by
Kate Abnett in Brussels; editing by John Stonestreet and Christina Fincher
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/lithuania-says-sanctions-goods-kaliningrad-take-effect-saturday-2022-06-18/
June 18, 2022
Lithuania Bans Transit Of Sanctioned
Russian Goods To Kaliningrad
Lithuania
has begun a ban on the rail transit of goods subject to European Union
sanctions to the Russian far-western exclave of Kaliningrad, transport
authorities in the Baltic nation said on June 18.
The EU
sanctions list includes coal, metals, construction materials, and advanced
technology.
Anton
Alikhanov, the governor of the Russian oblast, said the ban would cover around
50 percent of the items that Kaliningrad imports.
Alikhanov
said the region, which has an ice-free port on the Baltic Sea, will call on
Russian federal authorities to take tit-for-tat measures against the EU country
for imposing the ban. He said he would also seek to have more goods sent by
ship to the oblast.
The
cargo unit of Lithuania's state railways service set out details of the ban in
a letter to clients following "clarification" from the European
Commission on the mechanism for applying the sanctions.
Previously,
Lithuanian Deputy Foreign Minister Mantas Adomenas said the ministry was
waiting for "clarification from the European Commission on applying
European sanctions to Kaliningrad cargo transit."
The
commission stated that sanctioned goods and cargo should still be prohibited
even if they travel from one part of Russia to another but through EU
territory.
The
European Union, United States, and others have set strict sanctions on Moscow
for its unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.
The
ministry did not comment on the issue following the state railway confirmation.
Russia's
Baltic Sea exclave of Kaliningrad, sandwiched between Lithuania and Poland,
became part of the Soviet Union after World War II. It has a population of
about 430,000 people and hosts the headquarters of Russia's Baltic sea fleet.
Based on reporting by
Reuters, TASS, and New Voice Of Ukraine
https://www.rferl.org/a/31904337.html
Kaliningrad (/kəˈlɪnɪnɡræd/ kə-LIN-in-grad; Russian: Калининград, IPA: [kəlʲɪnʲɪnˈɡrat]), until 1946 known as Königsberg (German pronunciation: [ˈkøːnɪçsbɛʁk]; Russian: Кёнигсберг, tr. Kyonigsberg, IPA: [ˈkʲɵnʲɪɡzbɛrk]), is the largest city and the administrative centre of Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave sandwiched between Lithuania and Poland. The city is situated on the Pregolya River, at the head of the Vistula Lagoon on the Baltic Sea, and is the only ice-free port of Russia and the Baltic states on the Baltic Sea. Its population in 2020 is 489,359[12] with up to 800,000 residents in the urban agglomeration.[13][14] Kaliningrad is the second-largest city in the Northwestern Federal District, after Saint Petersburg, the third-largest city in the Baltic region, and the seventh-largest city on the Baltic Sea.
The settlement of modern-day Kaliningrad was founded in 1255 on the site of the ancient Old Prussian settlement Twangste by the Teutonic Knights during the Northern Crusades, and was named Königsberg in honor of King Ottokar II of Bohemia. A Baltic port city, it successively became the capital of the State of the Teutonic Order, the Duchy of Prussia (1525–1701) and East Prussia. Königsberg remained the coronation city of the Prussian monarchy, though the capital was moved to Berlin in 1701. From 1454 to 1455 the city under the name of Królewiec belonged to the Kingdom of Poland, and from 1466 to 1657 it was a Polish fief. Königsberg was the easternmost large city in Germany until World War II. The city was heavily damaged by Allied bombing in 1944 and during the Battle of Königsberg in 1945; it was then captured by the Soviet Union on 9 April 1945. The Potsdam Agreement of 1945 placed it under Soviet administration. The city was renamed to Kaliningrad in 1946 in honor of Soviet revolutionary Mikhail Kalinin. Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, it is governed as the administrative centre of Russia's Kaliningrad Oblast, the westernmost oblast of Russia.[15]
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaliningrad
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