The last direct train link between the EU and Russia has come to the end of the capital at 7:07pm on Sunday night. train operator VR announced on Friday that it would halt its twice- daily high speed service, which was launched just 12 years ago with Vladimir Putin on board the First train.

The service is technically owned by a company called Karelian Trains, a joint venture between VR and Russian Railways which each own a 50% stake in the The Allegro trains are being stopped because of EU sanctions, and VR says that people who wanted to leave Russia, including Finnish citizens, have had “safe passage” until now. “We have continued to operate the Allegro in accordance with the authorities’ weeks, people who wanted to leave Russia have had time to leave the country” says Topi Simola, VR’s Senior Vice President for Passenger Services in a”Now, due to the sanctions, it is no longer appropriate to continue the Allegro service” he adds. an increase in the number of passengers using the high-speed Allegro trains, which connect the Finnish capital with Russia’s second city in just three hours

More people used the train service to leave Russia as “Flight bans were imposed and air routes shut down.

“During the recent couple of weeks there has only been about 60% capacity daily, on the trains from St. Petersburg to Finland direction,” VR’s Head of Communications Tatu Tuominen tells Euronews.

“From Finland to St Petersburg it’s been something like 25% capacity on the trains” he adds. overnight train service linking Moscow to Helsinki, with a stop in

St Petersburg, was cancelled during the COVID pandemic and is currently still not operating. The “Lev Tolstoy” train was wholly owned and operated by Russian Railways. Land border crossings between the two countries remain open, but the end of passenger and cargo services between Finland and Russia is highly symbolic: even during the Cold War, a night train ran through the Iron Curtain between Helsinki and Russia.