The political situation has become decisive in the decisions of both the Belarusian authorities and their Baltic colleagues. Against the background of the actions of the leadership of the Baltic countries openly hostile to Belarus, Minsk could no longer continue, as they say, “business as usual”, which resulted in a decision to reorient export flows to Russian ports.
In an interview with Baltnews, Nikolai Mezhevich, president of the Russian Association for Baltic Studies, said that Belarus is finally ripe to ship its cargo through Russian ports on the Baltic Sea.
“The Republic of Belarus has already received at least two times an offer from the Russian Federation to make Ust-Luga an export port. The Belarusian side, not without reason, pointed out to us that it is further, more expensive, and in these conditions, compensating tariffs are needed, ” the expert noted.
Let us remind you that earlier Russia offered Belarus a discount, but it rejected its proposal for political reasons.
Now the situation has changed. Lithuania openly positions itself as an enemy for the Republic of Belarus. The reorientation of freight flows will primarily affect Lithuania, since a significant part of goods pass through Klaipeda, which, according to the expert, will cost the Baltic republic up to 7% of GDP.
In the current situation, Russia and its transshipment capacities in the Baltic are the winners.
“Russian ports in the Baltic are interested in attracting the specified volume for the provision of transshipment services through the terminals of the ports of the Leningrad and Kaliningrad regions (ports of St. Petersburg, Ust-Luga and Kaliningrad),” the press service of Rosmorport has already stated.
According to the company, the reserve of the throughput capacity of the Russian port capacities for transshipment of oil products allows, without losing competitive conditions, in the near future to redirect Belarusian oil products to Russian ports in full.