Paul Goble
Staunton, Oct. 23 – Russian shipyards will be able to build only 16 of the 70 ice-class ships that had been planned for and would be needed to meet the ambitious targets Vladimir Putin has set for the Northern Sea Route, Deputy Prime Minister Yuri Trutnyev over oversees Far Eastern and Arctic policies for Moscow told the Russian cabinet this week.
As a result of this, the failure to build land-based infrastructure to support the NSR and of rising prices for Russian icebreakers to accompany ships not of ice-class, he said, the route will not meet annual targets well into the 2030s (ru.thebarentsobserver.com/trutnev-nuzno-70-sudov-ledovogo-klassa-mozem-postroit-tolko-16/419200 and https://akcent.site/novosti/35945).
Russian officials earlier suggested that this might be the case (e.g., 1prime.ru/20240607/verfi-848943438.html), but this is the bleakest assessment by the most senior Russian official yet, his remarks prompted by the impact of both sanctions and the Kremlin’s diversion of funds from the NSR and other projects to Putin’s war in Ukraine.
Unless Moscow is able to purchase ships from other countries or China expands its role in the NSR, the Northern Sea Route which the Russian government had counted on to be a major earner and even driver of Russian economic development is simply not going to deliver at least in this decade.
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