Paul Goble
Staunton, May 15 – Moscow often announces that it is going to build more enormous icebreakers to ensure Russia controls the Northern Sea Route, but these are seldom completed on time or even at all, the result of problems with Russian yards and increasingly budgetary stringencies imposed as a result of Putin’s war in Ukraine.
Now to secure money to fund the construction of two nuclear icebreakers already announced, the Leningrad and the Stalingrad, Moscow is considering imposing tariffs on cargoes passing through the NSR or Russian ports (regionvoice.ru/na-ledokoly-po-kaple-vlasti-rf-obsuzhdayut-novye-portovye-sbory/).
Two tariff arrangements are now under discussion. One would impose tariffs by the ton on cargo carried on the NSR rising now and then falling a few years from now, while the other would impose a single cargo tariff per ton of cargo on all ships using Russian ports. It is unclear whether it would be phased out or not.
Rosatom, the government agency overseeing such projects, says the discussion of imposing such tariffs has been under discussion since 2019, an indication that powerful shipping interests are opposed even though many in the Russian capital want to see the icebreakers completed as a matter of national pride.
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