The news was announced by Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk during a meeting at the Ukrainian railway company Ukrzaliznytsia.

Thus, Lithuania will become the first EU member state to join the railway route bypassing Russia. Belarus, although it did not participate in the signing of the memorandum, will also join them, since it is already participating in the Viking project, <url> writes. We are talking about the Viking combined transport train, which passes through the territory of Lithuania, Ukraine and Belarus.

The train started running on a regular basis in 2003. It is a joint project of the railways of Lithuania, Ukraine and Belarus, stevedoring companies (companies associated with loading and unloading operations) and the ports of Klaipeda, Ilyichevsk and Odessa. The total length of the Draugiste (Lithuania) — Minsk (Belarus) — Ilyichevsk (Ukraine) route is 1,766 thousand km. The volume of Viking cargo transportation ranges from 2 thousand to 5 thousand containers per year.

For eight months of 2015, the volume of traffic amounted to 3.92 thousand containers.

The discussion of possible ways of cargo transportation from Asia to Central Asia and Europe "bypassing Russia" intensified last year, although the trans-Caspian route itself, called "Silk Wind", was developed at the end of 2012.