Moldova: Chaos in transit traffic, over 100 trucks loaded with grain

Leuseni-Albita border crossing point on the Moldovan-Romanian border. More than 100 trucks loaded, mostly from Ukraine, Modlavia and Romania, most of them loaded with grain, are waiting to submit the documents. The drivers are nervous, the heat is unbearable, the queue more than 10 kilometers long. Most do not talk to reporters, because they do not want to have problems, as they say.

Dmytro Gololobov is one of the few who will speak. The 46-year-old driver from the Ukrainian city of Dinpropetrovsk has been waiting at the border for days. The truck is loaded with household products, the destination is a warehouse in Romania. “Ukrainian ports are closed and all trucks, including those transporting grain, have to pass through Moldova. “I have colleagues who bring wheat to Romanian ports,” says Gololobov. Ukraine has a lot of grain, especially in Kherson, but the Russians have taken it, and now “we are transporting what is left in warehouses,” says the Ukrainian driver.

Dmyitro Gololobov hosts on the border with Romania

Before the war in Ukraine, Ukrainian drivers needed a day to cross Moldova and Romania. But the war has changed everything. Gololobov must show a lot of patience. “My wife and two children are waiting for me at home. The girl is married, but the groom has gone to the cup now. We were attacked, they told us they would ‘liberate’ us. Before the war we lived very well, from whom did they want to liberate us? “We were attacked, but we showed the whole world that we can fight.”

Logistical disaster at the border

The export of wheat from Ukraine is almost completely blocked, due to the war and this risks a global famine catastrophe, as Ukraine is one of the largest producers of wheat in the world. All Ukrainian ports have been mined, Moldovan and Ukrainian freight forwarders are looking for other ways to reach their destination.

Iulian Postica is the director of International Transport Enterprise, AITA in Moldova. He calls the border situation a catastrophe, as 80% of goods transport passes through the Republic of Moldova by land. “Before the war, wheat was exported through Ukrainian ports, as well as through the Danube and the Black Sea. Now with the blockade we have great difficulties. Roads now pass through MOLDOVA in the direction of Romania and Bulgaria. “

Iulian Postica

According to Posticas, it is not only the war that is to blame. All measures taken by the Moldovan side are ineffective if not coordinated with the Romanian authorities. The current problem is the lack of border control personnel on the Romanian side. “We have the bottleneck effect, everything we try to do quickly gets stuck in the Romanian customs.” Traffic jams will continue if both parties do not coordinate.

The problem has only recently started to be taken seriously by the Romanian side, where after a defect in the customs information system, even longer queues were created. Another 62-year-old driver died after waiting 24 hours at a checkpoint in Albita. Only after Moldovan Prime Minister Natalia Gavrilita met with Romanian counterpart Nicolae Ciuca on June 10th were strategic teams formed with both countries to improve traffic. It is not known when the measures of these teams will take effect, because the queues are still very long.

Oleg Tofilat

Railway solution only for the future

One opportunity to export grain from Ukraine would be railways. But at the moment it is unachievable because the railway network in Moldova needs to be modernized. Another problem is the width of the Moldovan rails, which date back to Soviet times and differ from the standard of the EU member state, Romania. Oleg Tofilat, general director of the Moldovan State Railway, says the development of rail freight requires huge investments, but funds have been lacking for 30 years. “The reality in Ukraine requires urgent action. “But the necessary reconstruction work on the railway corridors takes years.”

Reconstruction of the 230-kilometer-long segment from Tighina in the Moldovan east to Giurgules, a port on the Danube with a length of 460 meters, is planned for 2014. But the start of work was done a few weeks ago, in May 2022. The need to improve infrastructure is great. According to data from the Moldovan authorities, the number of customs registrations destined for export by 73% compared to a year ago.

But for many truckers at the moment nothing is going to change. They have to keep waiting./DW

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