Arctic

Russia’s Northern Sea Route Ambitions

Earlier this month, on April 19, the State Commission on the development of the Arctic Regions convened in Moscow to establish a single company to oversee all the logistics operations in the Russian Far North (Arctic.ru, April 19). The move came amidst news reports showing little success, to date, in developing either the infrastructure or the cargo flows on the famous Northern Sea Route (NSR) along Russia’s Arctic coastline (The Independent Barents Observer, April 16).

For years, the NSR was presented by Moscow as a prospective alternative for shipping goods from East Asia to Europe. Russian officials argued that this wa­ter­way is much shorter than the “southern” route via the Malaccan and Bab-el-Mandeb straits and through the Suez Canal (7,600 versus 11,000 nautical miles). Goods traveling from Yokohama to Hamburg along the NSR could be mo­ved faster (30–35 days, compared to around 45 days if shipped along traditional sea lanes). This may be true, but the competing southern route still has many advantages—year-round access, multiple large ports along the way, easy procedures at the Suez Canal, etc.—while the NRS itself currently looks barely suited for modern shipping.