Part of port terminals of the Ust-Luga village in the Russian region of Leningrad, north of Moscow, could be placed under the management of Minsk for the transshipment of Belarusian goods, Aleksandr Drozdenko, the governor of the Leningrad Region, said on Thursday
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 02nd June, 2022) Part of port terminals of the Ust-Luga village in the Russian region of Leningrad, north of Moscow, could be placed under the management of Minsk for the transshipment of Belarusian goods, Aleksandr Drozdenko, the governor of the Leningrad Region, said on Thursday.
"We discussed a mixed option. Belarusian specialists have already examined the land plots where Belarusian port structures can be built. A very tight construction schedule was mentioned. And the existing terminals can be used meanwhile. We mentioned some of the terminals, which are ready to sign the paperwork now and go as far as possibly handing over some of the territory, some of the port facilities to the Belarusian side in order to start shipments today," Drozdenko said during a meeting with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, Belarusian news agency Belta reported.
Lukashenko said on February 18 that he reached an agreement with Russian President Vladimir Putin on the construction of a port for the transshipment of millions of tonnes of Belarusian cargo near St. Petersburg. He said that Putin gave an order "to start construction immediately," adding that Belarus would not return to the transshipment of its goods through the territory of Lithuania and Ukraine, which had previously banned Minsk from doing so.
In February 2021, Russia and Belarus signed an agreement on the exports of 9.8 million tonnes of Belarusian oil products through Russian ports in 2021-2023. The sides started discussing the construction of a port terminal for the transshipment of Belarusian fertilizers last spring.
In January 2022, the Lithuanian government decided to suspend an agreement on the transshipment of Belarusian fertilizers from February 1. On February 2, the Belarusian Foreign Ministry condemned the decision and retaliated with restrictive measures against the transit of a number of goods from Lithuania. The Belarusian authorities have repeatedly offered Vilnius to hold consultations on the matter; however, the latter refused.
Russian Ambassador to Minsk Boris Gryzlov said earlier this year that Belarusian goods would be exported through Russian ports instead of Lithuanian ones already this year.
