Russian Experts Concede Caspian Water Level Falling 69 Centimeters a Year, a Trend that Threatens Moscow’s Economic and Military Use of that Sea

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 17 – The decline in the water level of the Caspian Sea is now increasing so fast that Russian experts now say that it will soon threaten the ability of littoral states to make use of it for economic development or military purposes. Their acknowledgements represent a turnabout and follow a statement by Vladimir Putin at the end of August.

            At that time, the Kremlin leader expressed concern about the decline in the water levels of the Caspian and the impact of that development on the region and urged all littorals states to work together to slow or reverse that trend (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/08/putin-worried-about-falling-water.html).

            That led to the convention of a meeting of Russian Federation experts in Astrakhan, some of whom had played down this problem (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/03/water-level-of-caspian-sea-falling-at.html) but now are now sounding the alarm (vk.com/video-40567160_456244122 and casp-geo.ru/astrahanskie-uchenye-obsudili-problemu-obmeleniya-kaspijskogo-morya/).

            Participants declared that the water level of the Caspian is declining by 69 centimeters (27inches a year) and that this has left 22,000 square kilometers of former seabed exposed as dry land, an area equal in size to Israel and Slovenia. As a result, at least the northern portion of the sea, the one adjoining Russia, “could be lost” as far as economic or military use is concerned.

            Both the experts and even more Putin and his entourage are likely especially concerned because falling water levels in the Caspian are in part a reflection of falling water levels in the Volga and the Volga-Don Canal which have allowed Moscow to move ships from the Caspian Sea in the Sea of Azov and used against Ukraine.

            Worrie about the siltification of these waterways have already led to expanded and international dredging operations and to calls for an alternative canal from the Caspian to the Black Sea (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2022/03/in-move-with-profound-security.html and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2021/04/moscows-use-of-caspian-flotilla-against.html).

            In the short term, more dredging is likely because constructing a new canal would be enormously expensive and take many years, money and time that the Putin regime almost certainly does not have enough of either.  Other countries, including China and Iran, may become more involved, something that would transform the geopolitics of that region and beyond.