Key facts
- Shipments will be held at Klaipeda port until test results are ready, a Lithuanian Agriculture Ministry official told Reuters.
- Testing could take at least two months; Lithuania lacks a laboratory for the required tests, so they will be done abroad.
- Shipments found to contain grain of a different origin must be returned or destroyed, the ministry said.
- The exporter will cover all costs of storing, testing, returning or destroying the grain, per the ministry.
- Audrone Mikalauskiene, head of Lithuania's State Border Guard Service, said shipments would be stopped as long as necessary.
- Russia's Baltic terminals and those in Latvia and Lithuania can process about 10% of the volume usually shipped through southern ports, Reuters reported.
Lithuania will tighten checks on grain from Russia and Belarus from November 16, blocking shipments from clearing customs until their origin is verified, Reuters reported on November 10, citing a Lithuanian Agriculture Ministry official. The checks apply to wheat, barley, sunflower seeds and maize passing through Klaipeda port, where shipments will be held until test results are ready.
The inspection could take at least two months, according to the official. Lithuania lacks a laboratory that can conduct the required tests, meaning they will have to be done abroad. Shipments found to contain grain of a different origin will have to be returned or destroyed, the ministry said, with the exporter covering all costs of storing, testing, returning or destroying the grain.
"We will continue inspecting, verifying, and stopping shipments for as long as necessary to prevent grain of illegal origin from entering the international market," said Audrone Mikalauskiene, head of Lithuania's State Border Guard Service.
Lithuania has been testing grain shipments from Russia and Belarus since September over concerns that some may have originated in Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine. Lithuanian Prime Minister Mindaugas Sinkevicius called in October for EU sanctions on Russian grain and a ban on its transit, and the prime ministers of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania urged the bloc to put the issue on its agenda, seeking stronger measures against grain stolen from occupied Ukrainian territories, a transit ban and further support for the EU-Ukraine Solidarity Lanes.
Russia, the world's leading wheat exporter, has increasingly struggled to ship grain via the Black Sea amid Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian ports, forcing it to rely on alternative routes, Reuters reported. Some Russian grain has been redirected to Russia's Baltic ports and to terminals in Latvia and Lithuania, even though these can process only about 10% of the volume that usually goes through the southern ports. Estonia prohibited the transit of Russian and Belarusian grain through its territory in October; Russia and Belarus have not used Estonia for grain exports so far, and the move is designed to prevent any such exports in the future.