Secessionist leader Igor Smirnov announced on 5 August that Tiraspol had decided to lift the railway blockade between Transnistria and Moldova, and Transnistria and Ukraine and Russia. Smirnov said this decision was taken after Kyiv had agreed to allow Transnistrian exports to transit Ukrainian territory without Moldovan export certificates. Chisinau had stopped issuing export certificates for companies in Transnistria as part of the sanctions it imposed owing to the school crisis on 1 August.
