Paul Goble
Staunton, Oct. 1 – When Putin aide Nikolay Patrushev spoke to a meeting on the defense of Russia’s interests in the Arctic last month, he focused on the future and the chance that Moscow will build more ports and expand trade in the Arctic by means of riverine shipping (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2025/08/to-develop-north-moscow-has-no-choice.html).
Dmitry Verkhoturov, a Siberian journalist, says that the reason that Patrushev talked about the future rather than reporting about the recent past is that with regard to shipping in the Arctic in the recent past, there is “little positive” to report because almost none of Moscow’s goals have been met (sibmix.com/?doc=17924).
The journalist notes that in 2018, Vladimir Putin said the Northern Sea Route should carry 80 million tons of cargo every year; but the real numbers have fallen far short of that. Last year, it carried 37.9 million tons, less than half of what the Kremlin leader predicted. And this year, that figure will be roughly the same.
The shortfall in this overall figure both reflects and was accompanied by other problems in Russia’s development of the NSR, Verkhoturov says. The port at Lavna, which was supposed to be finished by the beginning of this year hasn’t been and will handle only eight ships and 650 tons of cargo, far below Moscow’s much-ballyhooed projections.
And even on the question of improving security for ships traversing the NSR, the picture has been far worse than Moscow has been promising. For this service to be effective, there must be helicopters that can reach ships in trouble, but at present, there are no bases for helicopters in the Far North and consequently no helicopters, again despite Moscow’s promises.
No wonder Patrushev and others attending the meeting did not want to talk about what had been achieved but only about the future, the Siberian journalist says.
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