Russia urgently suspends railway border crossings with Europe

Russia has abruptly suspended operations at seven railway border crossings with Finland, Estonia and Latvia from the morning of 1 July.
There are three railway lines connecting Russia and Finland: Lyttä, Värtsilä and Enso.

Finland has kept all road border crossings with Russia closed since November 2023, after Russia's FSB facilitated the movement of migrants across the border as part of what Finnish authorities described as a hybrid operation aimed at destabilising the country's border regime.

Since then, rail traffic has only been permitted through the Vainikkala border station near Lappeenranta.

The order also temporarily closes the railway crossings at Pechory-Pskovskiye on the Estonian border and Pytalovo on the Latvian border from 1 July.

Russia are allegedly on the verge of raising a major new compulsory military draft. Closing the border is an expected prerequisite

Unless I'm wrong, I'm quite sure it was only freight as passenger services haven't crossed those borders since pre 2022 and in some services pre 2014 and everyone uses coaches which are very busy and the tickets pricey. Notice Lithuania still keeps their crossing open which passenger and freight PD (RR) services use to cross into Kaliningrad. Those services are often escorted en-route.

Edit: It seems even this service has been discontinued.

RailWonderer said:

. Notice Lithuania still keeps their crossing open which passenger and freight PD (RR) services use to cross into Kaliningrad. Those services are often escorted en-route.

Edit: It seems even this service has been discontinued.

Click to expand...

RZD appear to operate through Lithuania as usual (attached image shows booking page for 6 July 2026 still on sale with high demand).

Even though relations between Russia and Finland are not exactly great, to say the least, I still wouldn’t have thought the Russian side would want to stop exports considering there has been no passenger traffic since early 2022.

Mainline421 said:

RZD appear to operate through Lithuania as usual (attached image shows booking page for 6 July 2026 still on sale with high demand).

Even though relations between Russia and Finland are not exactly great, to say the least, I still wouldn’t have thought the Russian side would want to stop exports considering there has been no passenger traffic since early 2022.

Click to expand...

The advantage of not running is that you can seal the border more effectively. Roads can be blocked off with much less notice than can railways, where it’s a good idea to stop the scheduled traffic in a controlled fashion first.