Ukrainian Railways (UZ) and the Lithuanian railway holding LTG Group agreed to develop a new freight service between Kyiv and Klaipėda. “The first test runs of the intermodal cargo transportation route are planned for this year”, LTG added.
The initiative is still in its early stages, as a Memorandum of Understanding was recently signed by the parties to lay out the foundations of the project. The journey would include transiting through Poland, as Belarus remains an unviable option and Ukraine plans on being integrated on EU railways. This new service might provide Ukraine with new possible market partners such as Scandinavia thanks to the links to and from the Lithuanian port of Klaipėda.
This announcement is not the first example of cooperation between Lithuania and Ukraine in the context of rail freight. At the end of 2023, UZ and LTG Cargo set up a container service linking Kyiv to Kaunas to offer an alternative to the road blockades on the Ukraine-Poland border. Moreover, the two companies cooperated with Ukrainian logistics company Global Ocean Link to start transporting semi-trailers on the rail via the same route.
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