Lithuania has passed a law banning Russian natural gas imports into the country, except for gas transit via its territory to Moscow’s Kaliningrad exclave.

The parliament on Tuesday adopted the respective amendments to the Law on Natural Gas in a vote of 123 to none with two abstentions.

The legislation will bar access to Lithuania’s gas transmission system and its Klaipeda LNG terminal to suppliers from countries deemed as posing a threat to national security. The ban will not apply to suppliers transporting gas via Lithuania to Kaliningrad.

Klaipedos Nafta, the operator of the Klaipeda LNG terminal, in early March suspended the acceptance of cargoes from Russia’s Novatek after the EU imposed sanctions on Gennady Timchenko, a Russian oligarch who can be considered a controlling person of the Novatek Group under EU law, over the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine.

In April, Lithuania also cut off imports of pipelined Russian gas in a bid to gain full independence from Gazprom and in response to Russia’s energy blackmail in Europe and the war in Ukraine.

Currently, Russian gas continues to transit through Lithuania to Kaliningrad, but under a different technical regime than usual, ensuring that only the volume of gas needed for transit is transported.

en.delfi.lt