Commercial road traffic sanctions slowed down the traffic at the border – Finnish Customs turned back 60 vehicle in total

The new sanctions by the EU on 9 April 2022 ended all road traffic carrying commercial goods as concerns vehicles registered in Russia or Belarus. Customs has turned back 60 vehicles in total. No vehicles had to be turned back during Easter.

The European Union has imposed extensive sanctions against Russia and Belarus due to the attack on Ukraine. As the implementing authority, Finnish Customs’ tasks include enforcing the sanctions on goods traffic agreed at EU level.

Based on the new sanctions imposed by the EU, all road traffic across EU’s outer border with commercial goods carried by transport companies based in Russia and Belarus, ended at midnight on 9 April 2022. All vehicles registered in Russia or Belarus are turned back to Russia.

– EU’s sanctions previously imposed against Russia had already reduced the border traffic, and since the entry into force of these new sanctions, traffic has slowed further. Overall, the traffic has decreased by nearly 90 per cent compared to last year. The information regarding the sanctions reached the operators quite quickly and we turned back 60 vehicles, most of them the day after the sanctions came into force. The traffic is likely to remain quiet but in the future, some of the transports may potentially be covered by exemptions, says Sami Rakshit, Director of the Enforcement Department. 

On its website, Customs has monitored the number of vehicles turned back from the border. Since the traffic has slowed down, the monitoring has stopped. 

More information in Customs’ previous press releases: Customs turned back 35 vehicles during the night (9.4.2022, in Finnish) and Commercial road traffic from Russia to end after midnight for vehicles registered in Russia or Belarus (8.4.2022)

News release in Finnish by the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland: Venäjä-pakotteet: maantiekuljetukset EU:ssa ja alusten pääsy satamiin (13.4.2022)