Georgian Railway dismisses media reports on sanctioned cargo in Batumi as “fake”

Georgian Railway on Thursday dismissed reports by opposition-minded TV channels on an alleged presence of railway freight subject to international sanctions on Russia in Georgia’s western city of Batumi as “fake”.

In rejecting the information, the company said the freight carriages in question carried fuel oil belonging to a Kazakh company. 

It also explained the type of carriages featured in the report were used by “several Central Asian countries” to transport oil products to Europe via Georgia, naming Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan as examples of countries where companies operate the type of rolling stock.

“Georgia is a transit country in such cases”, the company said, adding domestic authorities had “never carried” sanctioned cargo, allowed passage of sanctioned freight, or that owned by individuals under the international sanctions imposed on Russia for its invasion of Ukraine.