Lithuania will ask the European Union for an additional 24 million euros to secure the Russian transit train corridor, Interior Minister Agne Bilotaite said on March 30.
“It will include specific technical measures, in particular, the purchase of a helicopter. These are measures that would boost Kaliningrad transit security, and we need around 24 million euros,” she said.
The helicopter will be used to monitor the trains throughout their journey through Lithuania, Bilotaite added. The funding will also be used to install cameras along the entire railway section from Kena, on the border with Belarus, to Kybartai on the border with the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad.
The train movements are controlled and checked by the State Border Guard Service (VSAT). The transit scheme was agreed upon by the European Union, Lithuania and Russia when the Baltic country joined the bloc in 2004.
Around 100 Russian transit trains between Moscow and Kaliningrad on the Baltic coast pass through Lithuania every month. (LRT/Business World Magazine)
