FT: EU moves to play down tensions over Kaliningrad

The EU has sought to dial down tensions with Moscow over Kaliningrad by indicating it was not seeking to block shipments of sanctioned goods from Russia.

The European Commission released guidance confirming that the bloc was not attempting to prevent goods transported by rail from travelling across Lithuania to reach the Russian exclave on the Baltic Sea, Financial Times reported on July 13.

However goods that are subject to EU sanctions, such as steel and cement, will not be allowed to travel by road, it said. Sanctioned military and dual use goods and technology are fully prohibited regardless of the mode of transport.

The move follows weeks of talks within the EU over how rigorously to enforce sanctions on Russian products destined for Kaliningrad. Lithuania has been carefully checking the shipments, triggering a furious response from Moscow, which accused the EU of imposing a “blockade” on the territory.

Lithuania controls the only overland rail route linking the exclave to mainland Russia via Belarus. Some EU officials have privately criticised the scale and intensity of Lithuania’s checks on Russian trains, fretting that they could create a dangerous stand-off with Russia in a geopolitically sensitive part of Europe.

For their part, Lithuanian policymakers have repeatedly stated that they are correctly implementing EU sanctions against Russia and are not imposing any unilateral measures, denying there has been any “blockade” of the exclave.

The EU has pushed through six rounds of sanctions in retaliation for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which will affect a progressively widening array of products as they are phased in. Under Wednesday’s commission guidance, member states are required to look out for unusual trade patterns or flows which indicate sanctions circumvention.

The commission also underlined the importance of monitoring two-way trade flows to ensure sanctioned goods cannot enter the EU customs territory.