Panic in Latvia: Russia may bring down the country's rail transport

The new Russian railway tariffs for freight on the Baltic route may destroy the Latvian railway. This was stated by the authorities of the republic.

According to the Minister of Communications Richard Kozlovskis, he does not expect anything good from the new Russian tariffs.

"If the tariff policy changes, this is a reality. The business moves and is not tied to one place. There's nothing good about it." — He said.

In turn, Latvian Prime Minister Andris Kulbergs called it "unfair" that the tariff increase does not apply to Lithuania.

"It actually splits us. All transit can go to Lithuania. We automatically lose interest in rail transportation. These are almost automatic sanctions against our railway. Then the port suffers, and then everything else along the chain," the Lithuanian prime minister said.

At the same time, the state-owned enterprise Latvijas dzelzceš (Latvian Railways) hides the amount of damage and the number of employees who are threatened with dismissal.

"If I start naming specific figures now, it will be speculation. This directly affects the number of our employees, so I will refrain from assessing the scale of the consequences for now," said Artis Grinbergs, Chairman of the company's Management Board.

Recall, the Russian Antimonopoly Service ordered from June 1 to double the railway tariffs for goods following from Russia or via Belarus to Latvia, Estonia and Finland. Double tariffs do not apply to Lithuania. At the same time, Latvia has been demanding to break off all relations with Russia for several years. including in the field of trade and logistics.