Ukraine filed a lawsuit against Russia in the WTO

Ukraine applied to the World Trade Organization (WTO) with a lawsuit against Russia in connection with restrictions on transit introduced by Moscow in 2016. The fact that Kiev demanded to create an expert group in the WTO as part of this case was reported on February 13 by the Ministry of Economic Development of Ukraine.

The proceedings of the parties are associated with the “transit war”, which began last year: the Ministry of Transport of the Russian Federation banned Ukrainian trucks travel in Russian territory in February 2016. In response, the authorities of Ukraine immediately introduced a ban on the transit of Russian trucks.

As noted in the statement of the Ukrainian ministry, the process of resolving a dispute with Russia in the WTO was started in 2016, but "at the first stage of the Russian Federation it was not ready to resolve the dispute and did not take measures to cancel unlawful, discriminatory and economically unreasonable restrictions in the field of transit." Meanwhile, the losses of Ukraine due to a decrease in exports to Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan are estimated at about $ 400 million.

According to experts that the Ministry of Economic Development of Ukraine, due to restrictions on the Russian Federation for transit, suffered about 79% of export supplies from Ukraine to Kazakhstan and 95% of supplies to Kyrgyzstan. The decline in exports from Ukraine to the countries of Central and East Asia is estimated at 38.3%.

In January 2017, Deputy Minister of Infrastructure for European Integration Viktor Dovgan said that the losses of Ukraine due to the “transit war” with Russia exceeded $ 1 billion, amounting to 2% of GDP.

The press secretary of the President of Russia Dmitry Peskov, commenting on the claim of Kiev filed in the WTO, said that Moscow in this and other similar situations would use the methods and methods of protecting its interests provided for by international law, Interfax reports. “Some kind of endoral reasoning is hardly appropriate here,” Peskov added in response to the question of the consequences of the lawsuit of Ukraine.