More than 800 Russian freight cars seized by Finland

13.07.2022

Since April 2022, 865 Russian freight cars have been seized by Finnish authorities. Over 82 million euro worth of assets were frozen to comply with EU sanctions on Russian coal after the start of the war in Ukraine.

Four Russian companies were involved in the seizure: Uralchem-Trans, Rusgotrans, GLTK, and Alpha Leasing. The first three companies declined any comment, following the trend of the Russian Ministry of Transport and Russian Railways (RZD). Alpha Leasing, as reported by Reuters, considers the seizure as unlawful, and has filed an appeal to a Finnish court.

VR Group’s spokesperson Taina Kuitunen has told Reuters that the company is planning on returning the freight cars that have not been seized to Russia. The finnish company was considering returning all the Russian rail cars that were on Finnish territory (over 5000), but Finnish bailiffs ordered some to be seized.

Recent developments of Russia-Finland freight traffic

Since the end of March, Finland’s state-owned rail operator, VR Group, has been suspending and resuming freight traffic to and from Russia. Between 27 March and 4 May, traffic has been suspended twice, as stated in previous reports of RailFreight.com. The first ban was lifted at the end of March after consultations with UK authorities pointed out that the sanctions did not affect the contracts stipulated by VR Group.

However, in the beginning of April, the rail freight traffic suspension was reinstated on moral grounds. More specifically, Finland decided to let all existing contracts with Russian freight companies expire and to not sign new ones. In May, VR’s CEO Topi Simola said that traffic to and from Russia is expected to decrease by one-third by the end of the summer.

Analytics on topic
Report
21.11.2018
Report
21.11.2018
Making the railways of the future for the region
Over 65 participants from national administrations, international organizations, non-governmental organizations and the private sector discussed, over a number of sessions, the role of innovation in the sector and good practices that are helping develop the railways across the region.
Source: United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE)
Report
28.12.2023
Report
28.12.2023
Cargo flows between Uzbekistan and the European Union: opportunities and constraints for rail transit

On account of strategic position of Central Asian countries between Europe and Asia, the European Union is becoming ever more actively interested in a stable partnership with the countries of Central Asia, and seeks to develop relations not only with Central Asia as a whole, but also with each individual state in the region