Forward and upward: Russia will connect the North with the South
Vladimir Putin's high–profile and frequent meetings with Indian leaders Narendra Modi and Iranian presidents rarely go without mentioning the North-South International Transport Corridor (ITC) project. A similar situation is observed during the talks between the Russian leader and the presidents of Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Belarus. The MTK North–South project has become a byword for many. More than a quarter of a century has passed since its announcement, and logistics routes are still not being fully used. However, the SVR and the geopolitical conflict with "collective Europe" became the locomotives that brought the long-awaited and extremely promising project closer to its well-deserved expansion. More recently, it became known that the launch of large-scale transportation from Russia to India and China via Iran is planned for 2026. Izvestia dealt with the history, prospects and vicissitudes of the largest logistics project, which, according to its authors, could change the geopolitical and economic map of Eurasia.
Logistics for professionals
Robert Barrow, a general in the U.S. Marine Corps and a veteran of the Korean and Vietnam Wars, once said, "Amateurs discuss strategy. Professionals talk about logistics." The day before, Russia announced the imminent launch of one of the most important components of the largest logistics project in Eurasia. "It is planned to launch transportation on the routes Russia – Iran – India and Russia– Iran – China. Implementation date: 2026," said Andrey Tarasenko, head of Rosmorrechflot. According to Tarasenko, negotiations with the largest state-owned Iranian shipping company were held in Tehran back in April 2025. Then the parties agreed to organize container transportation within the framework of the North–South Transport Corridor. Then, in November of this year, Russia and Iran reached specific agreements on the creation of a joint maritime consortium to develop transportation between Russia and Iran's ports. "The negotiations also touched upon the launch of a regular container line between the port of Makhachkala and Iranian ports. The future consortium will strategically develop trade, transit and multimodal transportation by coordinating the actions of ports and shipping lines in the Caspian Sea," said the head of Rosmorrechflot.
The collapse of the Soviet Union brought significant changes to trade logistics between the European and Asian parts of Greater Eurasia. Trade and logistics routes were destroyed, economic cooperation became more complicated, and trade turnover fell. The gigantic potentials of such grandiose economic giants as China, India, Russia and Iran have not been fully exploited. The collapse of the USSR and the economic growth of the Chinese and Indian economies led to a review of trade opportunities, but for this it was necessary to do a tremendous amount of work to improve and even build infrastructure and transport routes from scratch in many countries.
MTK North–South is a large—scale and multi-level logistics corridor from St. Petersburg to the Indian port city of Mumbai. The length of the project is more than 7 thousand km, which makes it the third largest project in the world. Only the Chinese Belt and Road project and the Russian Trans–Siberian Corridor are larger than the North-South MTK. Theoretically, the project has three routes: the trans-Caspian (using railways and ports), as well as the western overland (through Azerbaijan) and the eastern (through Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan). The final points of the route are the Russian Northern Capital and Indian port cities with millions.
Transportation routes are a long story
The project has a rather complicated history of development. However, in recent years it has been actively promoted by Moscow. In May 2024, by his decree, the Russian president decided to increase the trade turnover and cargo transportation of the North–South Transport Hub by at least one and a half times by 2030 compared to 2021 by increasing the global competitiveness of routes. And in November 2024, Vladimir Putin gave the project an even more solid status: Deputy Prime Minister Vitaly Saveliev was appointed special representative of the President of Russia for the development of the North–South Transport Hub. A special working group on the development of the transport route was formed.
On September 12, 2000, at the Second Eurasian Transport Conference in St. Petersburg, representatives of Russia, Iran and India signed an intergovernmental agreement that initiated the creation of the North–South international transport corridor. All three countries quickly ratified the agreement, and in May 2002, the Ministers of Transport of the three countries reconvened in St. Petersburg, where they approved the official launch of the corridor. In the early years, the operation of the corridor showed high efficiency: cargo delivery took several times less time than traditional sea routes.
Meanwhile, not all of the MTK's potential has been used all these years. So, in December 2024, Vladimir Putin, who very often refers to this topic, again made statements. "Of course, the North–South corridor is also important. In fact, it is already in operation, and the volume of traffic along the corridor is constantly growing," Putin said. At the same time, he pointed out that there are a number of technical issues that need to be resolved for the construction of the last North–South railway section in Iran. Apparently, after the introduction of illegal and long–term sanctions against Russia by the EU and the West, the relevance of the North-South project has increased significantly. And now we are at the final stage of scaling the transport route.
A historic event, if there are loads
Vasily Koltashev, Director of the Institute of the New Society, emphasized in an interview with Izvestia that the expansion of the North–South corridor is a historically important event. He recalled that this route was explored by Afanasy Nikitin, an outstanding Russian traveler of the XV century. The purpose of the route is to connect the northern and southern parts of Eurasia. And Peter the Great, when he made his Persian campaign, had in mind to arrange the supply of goods from India to Europe, to Holland — through Persia, through the Caspian Sea, through the Volga, through Russian ports on the Baltic, to Holland and London, that is, to the Amsterdam and London Stock exchanges. There was no Suez Canal then.
"In general, this route involves increasing land trade between Russia and India, that is, creating a missing route where goods from any part of Russia enter India freely enough and Indian and Iranian goods enter Russia freely," the expert noted.
Vladimir Evseev, Head of the Department of Eurasian Integration and Development of the SCO Institute of CIS Countries, has more modest expectations from the North–South ITC. In a dialogue with the Izvestia newspaper, he recalled that the project was originally conceived with an eye to Europe, that is, goods were supposed to go from India through Iran and Russia to Europe. Later, other countries such as China, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan joined this project. The expert does not deny the importance of scaling the corridor, but wonders where so much cargo will come from.
— The corridor is already in operation. We are talking about a significant increase in its capacity and infrastructure development. MTK has a lot of potential. He has three routes. The whole question is what kind of cargo to carry, because initially it was assumed that from India, for example, the cargo would go to Northern Europe," the expert noted.
But now, in his opinion, this is unrealistic. But it is also impossible to say that we have a very large flow of goods from Russia to India and back. That is, there is nothing to fill the containers with. The main trade turnover between Russia and India is oil. She goes by sea," Evseev pointed out.
The expert recalled that trade with Europe has fallen by 47%, but there is a lot going on in parallel imports. "In any case, it will be necessary to solve important tasks — to increase trade turnover and its structure. All participants of the ITC need economic diversification," he concluded.
Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»
