Vladimir Putin had a different trade channel in mind as the world fretted about Russia’s embargo of Ukrainian grain exports in the Black Sea in late June. The Russian president described a “really enormous project” as the focal point of Moscow’s initiatives to “upgrade the transport and logistics architecture of the region” while speaking to leaders of countries that border the Caspian Sea.
The International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC), a 7,200-kilometer (4,474-mile) network of trains, highways, and sea links connecting Iran with Russia and India, has been little more than a pipe dream for more than two decades. However, analysts believe that Moscow, Tehran, and New Delhi are finally prepared to pop the cork on this old wine. As Moscow faces severe Western sanctions that prevent it from accessing European markets, a rare convergence of geopolitical and economic motivations is transforming the channel into a potentially crucial economic escape pathway.
Iran declared in June that it would conduct the first-ever pilot passage of cargo from Russia to India utilizing the INSTC, via the Strait of Hormuz port of Bandar Abbas. Since the two containers of wood laminate arrived, at least 39 more containers have been shipped from Russia to the Indian port of Nhava Sheva on the Arabian Sea.
Vaishali Basu Sharma, a former consultant in the National Security Council Secretariat of India, claimed that this was just the beginning. RZD Logistics, the largest multimodal transport provider in the Baltics and the former Soviet Union, introduced a new container train service along the INSTC earlier this month. Additionally, by 2030, it is anticipated that the INSTC corridor will be able to handle up to almost 25 million tonnes of freight annually, or 75% of all container traffic between Eurasia, South Asia, and the Gulf.
