{"id":467471,"date":"2026-07-01T18:06:57","date_gmt":"2026-07-01T08:06:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.railfreight.com\/?p=72288"},"modified":"2026-07-01T18:06:57","modified_gmt":"2026-07-01T08:06:57","slug":"russia-closes-seven-rail-border-crossings-to-estonia-latvia-and-finland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/?p=467471","title":{"rendered":"Russia closes seven rail border crossings to Estonia, Latvia and Finland"},"content":{"rendered":"

Russia will close seven rail border crossings to Estonia, Latvia and Finland starting today, 1 July. A government order to that end, signed by Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, was published on 30 June. The closures may have to do with the opening of a German-Dutch command centre in the Baltic region.<\/strong>
\n<\/span>The impacted checkpoints include Vyborg, Vartsilya, Lyuttya, Saint Petersburg-Finlandsky, and Svetogorsk on the border with Finland. The Pechory-Pskov crossing on the Estonian border will also close, as well as the Pytalovo checkpoint on the border with Latvia. Neither passengers nor freight can pass through these locations.<\/p>\n

Russia has not specified the duration of the closures. They do not play a significant role in Russian trade anymore. \u201cWe, in principle, naturally, have no interaction at this level in export-import traffic\u201d, commented Pavel Ivankin, president of the Russian National Research Centre of Transport and Infrastructure, in Russian media.<\/p>\n

\u201cDue to the sanctions, no one is coming to us, and we are not sending anything to the other side. But a certain amount of transit passes through us, including from Kazakhstan and China. Accordingly, they go to Finland, they go to the Baltics, and so on.\u201d<\/p>\n

New NATO HQ<\/h2>\n

Trains can still go to Lithuania through Belarus, and a border crossing with Latvia remains open, according to Ivankin. A complete closure of all border crossings would have a larger impact, he says, because Russia would lose those transit flows.<\/p>\n

The closure of the border crossings could be a response to the opening of a new NATO corps headquarters on the Estonian-Latvian border under German-Dutch command.<\/p>\n