Lithuania says it intercepted military supplies on their way to Russia, and sent them to Ukraine instead

BUSINESS INSIDER: Lithuanian customs officials said they intercepted shipments of military supplies en route by rail to Moscow — and sent them straight to Ukraine.

Customs officials inspecting carriages on Lithuania's southwestern border said that between September 27 and Wednesday, they found parcels of camouflage pants and nets in four separate shipments.

They said the trains were traveling from Kaliningrad, a Russian exclave bordering Lithuania and Poland, to Moscow.

Lithuania is the most direct route for goods passing from Kaliningrad to Russia.Google Maps

The officials said that the cargo was classified as military and needed a special permit and that the shipments were likely sent by Russian volunteer groups trying to support President Vladimir Putin's war effort.

It's not the first incident to crop up on the trans-Lithuania railway route between Kaliningrad and Moscow.

The Kyiv Independent reported a train carriage was recently graffitied with a "Z" — a symbol used by the Russian military — and another carried a message saying Lithuania's capital, Vilnius, is a "Russian city."

Lithuania, which was once part of the Soviet Union, has been one of Ukraine's staunchest allies.

In terms of aid sent to Ukraine as a percentage of GDP, it comes in behind only Denmark and Estonia, according to the Kiel Institute for the World Economy's aid tracker.

The tracker said that Lithuania had sent $812 million in military aid and $110 million in humanitarian aid to Ukraine between the start of the full-scale invasion in February 2022 and June this year, amounting to 1.43% of Lithuania's GDP.

While the US has sent far more — about $75 billion in combined military, humanitarian, and financial aid in the same timeframe — that sum represents about 0.35% of US GDP, per the tracker.

In March, Lithuania's prime minister, Ingrida Šimonytė, told Business Insider: "If Putin is not stopped in Ukraine, then whatever happens next is Europe's problem at large."

Lithuania is among several NATO countries bordering Russia that are readying for a Russian invasion, ramping up their military spending and constructing a defensive line along the collective 1,000 miles of border between Russia and Lithuania, Estonia, and Latvia.