Russia’s Federal Customs Service (FTS) on Thursday accused Lithuanian authorities of blocking freight trucks from entering Lithuania from the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad.
“Since 23:00 on March 20, without explanation, Lithuania has not accepted a single truck from Russia,” the FTS said in a statement, saying the blockage created a line of 140 trucks on the side of Kaliningrad.
The Russian exclave is home to over 1 million people and borders Lithuania and Poland along the Baltic Sea.
Kaliningrad region Governor Anton Alikhanov’s spokesman claimed the disruption was caused by a major outage that took down Lithuanian government websites, including its border protection service.
When reached for comment, an employee of Lithuania’s border authority told The Moscow Times over the phone that the agency had “no information” about a blockage or the build-up of freight vehicles along the Russian-Lithuanian border.
Russia’s FTS later said Lithuania had restored border crossings by Thursday afternoon.
Soon after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, Lithuania imposed strict restrictions on goods traveling across its territory, mainly by rail.
With reporting by Mack Tubridy.
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