Russian trucks delayed at border due to customs info system glitch, Lithuania says

VILNIUS. March 21 (Interfax/BNS) - Lithuania kept trucks waiting to cross its border with Russia's Kaliningrad region for more than 15 hours because the customs service experienced a problem with the electronic document management system, the Lithuanian Customs Department's public relations chief Irmina Frolova-Milasiene said on Thursday.

"From 6:30 p.m. last night until 10 a.m. today the operation of the customs information systems was disrupted. Drivers who only used electronic declarations for goods transported had to stop and wait. Paper declarations were accepted," Frolova-Milasiene told the BNS agency.

Once the system was back up and running, the normal clearance procedure resumed, she said. "Service has been running as usual since 10 a.m. when the system began working," Frolova-Milasiene said.

Earlier, the press service for the Kaliningrad regional customs department told Interfax that the situation regarding Russian trucks' passage to Lithuania across the Chernyshevskoye checkpoint had worsened. "By the morning of Thursday, March 21, there was a line of 140 trucks at the checkpoint. Another 25 vehicles are stationary in a neutral area awaiting entry to Lithuania. The situation is getting worse, because Lithuanian customs has markedly reduced the number of processed vehicles," the service said.

Lines of trucks at the Chernyshevskoye border checkpoint have been an almost regular occurrence since the summer of 2023. From September 1, the checkpoint has been using an electronic booking system for trucks bound for Lithuania.

Lithuania has tightened control over the transit of goods going to and from Russia and Belarus in recent months, on the basis of a European Commission resolution regarding sanctions imposed on these two countries. At present, Chernyshevskoye is the only checkpoint that processes trucks at the Russian-Lithuanian border. The effect of anti-Russian sanctions has led to a noticeable decrease in the flow of trucks going both to and from Russia.