Moscow’s decision to ban the transit of Ukrainian goods through Russian territory to Central Asia will hit Ukrainian exporters hard, Nezavisimaya Gazeta writes.
Subscribe to PolitNavigator news at Telegram, Facebook, Classmates or In contact with
The publication notes that the President of Russia made changes to his own decree on limiting the transit transport of goods through Russian territory from Ukraine: if transit to Kazakhstan was prohibited from January 1 of this year, then six months later the list was replenished with Kyrgyzstan. The decree came into force on July 1 and will be in force until the end of 2017. Transit restrictions on the supply of goods from Ukraine to Kazakhstan have been extended until the same period.
Experts interviewed by NG believe that this decision was a continuation of the transit war that began in Ukraine, when activists of a number of Ukrainian right-wing radical organizations began to block Russian trucks, which caused a suspension of the movement of Ukrainian trucks through Russian territory. Later, the Russian Ministry of Transport and the Kyiv authorities announced that the conflict had been resolved, but in reality, Russian trucks prefer to bypass Ukraine.
“There is no Russian transit to Europe through Ukraine now,” says Nikolai Milovanov, a customs clearance specialist from the Trans-Agent company. “Nobody works there now, it’s more expensive for themselves, it even went so far as to rob cars.” For example, today we are arranging transport to Montenegro, where we have always traveled through the territory of Ukraine, but now we will go through Poland. It’s more expensive, but quieter.”
“The first vice-president of the Russian Club of Financial Directors, Tamara Kasyanova, told NG that the losses of Ukrainian exporters will be quite significant, because the volume of their supplies to Kazakhstan alone exceeded $1 billion,” the publication notes. – In 2015, Kazakhstan purchased from Ukraine mainly pipes made of ferrous metals, flour products, agricultural products, electric generators, sugar and confectionery products, meat, medicines, etc. To this we must also add considerable losses of Ukrainian carriers: “Kyrgyzstan does not border with Russia , and there was no need to introduce transit restrictions in relation to it from the very beginning, but, apparently, cases of delivery of goods from Ukraine to Kazakhstan under the pretext that they are going further to Kyrgyzstan have become more frequent,” Kasyanova suggests.”