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Belarusian rapeseed oil shipments through Lithuania have been suspended following media investigations which revealed rapeseed from Russian-occupied territories in Ukraine had been processed in Belarus and sold to the European Union (EU), state-owned public broadcaster Lithuanian National Radio and Television (LRT) wrote.
Thousands of tonnes of rapeseed oil processed by Belarusian company Agroprodukt have been passing through Lithuania by rail, according to a 19 February report by Lithuanian news website 15min.lt in conjunction with the Belarusian Investigative Center (BIC), Latvian television channel TV3 and Ukrainian investigative project Skhemy.
LTG Cargo, the freight arm of state-owned railway company Lietuvos Geležinkeliai (Lithuanian Railways, LTG), said it had launched an internal investigation and stopped rapeseed oil shipments after the media started looking into the origin of Agroprodukt’s raw materials, LRT wrote on 19 February.
As a result, eight wagons of rapeseed oil heading to the port of Klaipėda from Belarus were detained at Lithuania’s Kena checkpoint in the week prior to the report.
As part of the investigations, BIC – alongside Ukrainian hackers KiBorg – found that Agroprodukt was one of the Belarusian factories receiving rapeseed from occupied Ukrainian territories, mainly from the Kherson region, since 2023.
Belarusian oil is shipped to Norway, Israel, China, the United Arab Emirates and Vietnam via Lithuania, according to the report.
As Agroprodukt had not been placed on an international sanction list, it had not come to the attention of Lithuanian authorities, LRT wrote.
Almost 50,000 tonnes of Agroprodukt oil transited Lithuania in 2024, according to LTG Cargo data.
However, this figure was likely to be much higher, with three companies – Gen Cargo, Baltijos Pervežimai and Baltic Cargo Agent –involved in the shipment of these cargoes in Lithuania last year, according to leaked data from Belarusian Railways.
The companies were quoted as saying they were not aware the Belarusian company was using rapeseed from occupied Ukrainian territories, stating that Agroprodukt was not on the list of sanctioned companies and cargoes passing through customs and Lithuanian Railways checks.
In June 2024, Lithuania announced bans on imports of agricultural products from Russia and Belarus, with oil added to the list.
However, the ban did not apply to goods in transit though Lithuania.
Prior to Russia’s invasion in February 2022, Ukraine was the main supplier of rapeseed oil to the EU.
However, since the outbreak of the war, Belarus had become the leading exporter of the oil to the EU market.