The Russian government on Tuesday announced the temporary suspension of rail border checkpoints with Finland, Latvia, and Estonia starting July 1, local media reported on Wednesday, quoting Russian news agency Tass.
The closed border crossings include St. Petersburg-Finlyandsky, Vyborg, Vyartsilya, Ljuttja and Svetogorsk (all of them for Finland), Pechory-Pskovskiye on the border with Estonia, and Pytalovo bordering on Latvia.
Meanwhile, Estonia has rerouted freight trains through the Narva rail border crossing after the suspension, reported Xinhua.
Artur Raichmann, commercial director of the Estonian state-owned railway infrastructure company Eesti Raudtee, told ERR Radio News that the decision came as a surprise because the Estonian side had received no prior notification from Russia.
According to Raichmann, two freight trains were affected by the closure of the rail border crossing and will be redirected through the Narva rail border crossing.
He said the Narva and Koidula border crossings are technically interchangeable, allowing rail traffic to continue without major disruption.
Raichmann said the immediate operational impact would be limited, as only an average of 0.3 to 0.4 freight trains cross Estonia's eastern rail border per day. However, he described the uncertainty such decisions create for long-term logistics projects as a greater challenge.
- Russia
- Suspends
- Rail border crossings
- Finland
Source: www.dailyfinland.fi
