UpdatedThe Belarusian government has decided to raise rail freight fees by an average of eight per cent. The burden of such a raise will primarily fall on the shoulders of domestic companies and those transporting...Read more
A road bridge in Russia has collapsed onto rail tracks. The debris of the bridge blocked the main rail line between Russia and Belarus. While the consequences for train traffic were initially unclear, traffic on...Read more
Belarus has started reconstructing its railway in the direction of St. Petersburg in Russia. A joint railway project with Russia aims to secure an export route through the port of the Russian city for Belarus....Read more
Russia is granting Belarus a discount of up to 40 per cent on rail freight transportation, according to the Belarusian ministry of transport. The two allies have agreed on a discount that applies to the...Read more
Lithuania’s national rail freight company LTG Cargo will stop re-exporting luxury cars to third countries from 1 December. From now until then, these services will be subject to enhanced checks. The decision was taken among...Read more
In a meeting held this week, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko and Russia’s Leningrad Oblast Governor Aleksandr Drozdenko discussed constructing a second railway line connecting Belarus with the Russian port of St. Petersburg. For them, such...Read more
The Estonian national rail freight company Operail has transported 1,1 million tons of goods during the first half of 2023. This is the second consecutive year the company has lost significant volumes in the first...Read more
Running freight trains between Slovenia and its neighbouring countries is still significantly problematic due to the recent disastrous floods that hit the country. The first estimates of the damages are set at over half a...Read more
From Thursday 1 June, cargo that originates from Russia or Belarus will no longer be able to cross the border between Poland and Belarus by truck. For rail freight, the border remains open. It is...Read more
INTERVIEWThe transport sector in the Baltic States is currently in a delicate position since the area constitutes the EU border with Russia and Belarus. In an interview with RailFreight.com, the Latvian Ministry of Transport underlined...Read more
During March, LTG Cargo rejected 506 rail transport applications. Most of them (258) came from neighbouring Belarus and involved, among others, state-controlled companies which attempted to forward their cargo via Lithuania’s rail network and ports.Read more
LTG Infra and the Lithuanian Customs Office step up their attempts to control and restrict smuggling and sanction circumvention attempts via rail. In this context, they aim to deploy two x-ray machines at the Kybartai...Read more
Funding for the upgrade of the Malaszewicze rail border crossing between Belarus and Poland might come from the Polish government. “The Ministry of Infrastructure is working on a draft act providing Cargotor with financing for...Read more
Turkish customs authorities are reported to have put a sudden stop to the transit transport of sanctioned goods to Russia and Belarus. Cargo that is sanctioned by the EU can no longer be shipped through...Read more
LTG Cargo seized 30 wagons loaded with products from Lukoil, a Russian energy company. The cargo was captured before it entered the Russian exclave Kaliningrad. Since last week, the Lithuanian company has been enforcing stricter...Read more
LTG Cargo, the freight subsidiary of Lithuanian Railways, is introducing stricter regulations to prevent sanctioned cargo from illegally entering Lithuania, especially from Belarus. Since the beginning of March, LTG Cargo’s customers will have to provide...Read more
The Lithuanian Customs Criminal Service has been conducting an off-the-radar investigation on the possible smuggling of sanctioned fertilisers from Belarus. The authority says that it has seized 3,000 tonnes of urea fertiliser worth 2 million...Read more
Investigative journalists in Lithuania and Belarus claim to have exposed a series of sanction circumventions by Belarus concerning the transport of fertilisers by rail. The Lithuanian transport minister Marius Skuodis commented that broken sanction rules...Read more
Starting on 16 February, Lithuania is closing the Stasylos-Byenyakoni rail border crossing with Belarus because of too many smuggling cases. Currently, therefore, the only rail border crossing left open between the two countries is Kena-Gudogai....Read more
ANALYSISWhat started as a far-fetched but relatively promising route and developed into Russia’s main diversification corridor is now becoming a hot trend everyone wishes to join. It’s all about the International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC)...Read more
The Eurasian Agroexpress project, officially launched in 2022 by member states of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), is here to stay and expand. In its first year of operation, the rail project scored sufficient numbers...Read more