In parallel with the announced $97 billion in new projects at the Oct. 17-18 Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation in Beijing, Russian President Putin has given the world another taste of just what kind of future is in store with the new development paradigm coming out of the expanded BRICS. During his speech at the Forum, Putin focused on transportation and trade corridors, which he summarily described as crisscrossing the entirety of the Eurasian continent.
He mentioned the International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC), whose rail connectivity, he said will run seamlessly from Murmansk in the north of Russia to Bandar Abbas in Iran, then went on to outline a major network of rail projects: Another railroad will run via the Urals region and Siberia, including a project to modernize part of the Trans-Siberian Railway, which will traverse across several regions of Siberia. There is the construction of the Northern Latitudinal Railway, towards the ports on the Arctic Ocean and the Yamal Peninsula, and a new North Siberian Railway towards the network comprising the Trans-Siberian Railway and Baikal-Amur Mainline.
“At the same time, we are working jointly with our foreign partners to build railway lines from Central Siberia towards the south of the country, towards China, Mongolia and the ports of the Indian and Pacific oceans,” Putin said. This includes plans to build one more Arctic-South corridor in the Far East, which will include a railway from the Baikal-Amur Mainline to Yakutia, bridges across the Lena and Amur Rivers, the Pacific Railway Line, the modernization of highways, and the creation of deep-water ports in the eastern part of the Northern Sea Route.
“These north-south transport corridors in European Russia, Siberia and the Far East will allow us to directly connect the Northern Sea Route and to integrate it into major logistics hubs in the south of our continent on the Indian and Pacific oceans,” the President said.
On the Northern Sea Route, Putin said that Russia is not only inviting its partners to use it, but that “we are inviting all interested countries to get directly involved in its development, and we are ready to provide reliable icebreaker escort, communications and supplies.” He added that by next year, navigation for ice-class vessels will be available year-round along the entire Northern Sea Route.
In summary, Putin said: “The creation of the international and regional logistics and trade routes I have mentioned objectively reflects the deep changes that are ongoing in the global economy and the new role the Asia-Pacific and Global South countries and other centers of growth and development are playing now.” It is in this context which Russia will assume the chairmanship of the expanded BRICS next year.
