Belarusian railway loses millions of tons of cargo because of the war

Due to the full-scale invasion of the Russian Federation and sanctions, the railway of Belarus will lose more than 2 million tons of cargo every month.

This is reported by the railway magazine Railway Supply.

According to First Deputy Prime Minister of the country Nikolai Snopkov, the railway transport of Belarus is now operating under the condition of a complete cessation of transportation from Ukraine. Because of this, about 1 million tons of cargo is lost per month.

“Last year, almost 12 million cargoes were transported by rail (in communication with Ukraine – ed.), or 9% of the total rail traffic. Almost half of this volume (45%) was oil and oil products. The rest are chemical and mineral fertilizers, coal, building materials, ferrous metals, timber, etc.,” the official noted. – For the same period, 16 million tons of cargo were transported in the Lithuanian direction. The main specific weight is potassium. The other is building materials, woodworking products, metals.”

Lithuanian Railways informed the State Enterprise “Belarusian Railways” about the termination of the transportation of sanctioned goods from June 4. They are talking about woodworking products, rubber products, ferrous metals. It should be noted that Lithuania will receive the last trains with them from Belarus on May 31.

“That is, only goods that are not subject to sanctions will continue to move in this direction. The total losses in these two directions (Ukraine and Lithuania – ed.) amount to 26 million tons of cargo,” the official specified.

As previously reported, the sanctions blocked Belarus’ exports worth $18 billion. In addition, the export of potash fertilizers from Belarus and the Russian Federation fell by 20%.

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