Russian Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin is calling for the construction of a new land route from Russia to India. Russia needs to build a transport route to the Indian Ocean, Khusnullin told TASS, published yesterday, which is particularly important given the possible cut-off of the routes through the Bosphorus and the ongoing closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
An International North-South Transport Corridor going to the Iranian port of Chabahar on the eastern end of the Gulf of Oman, and thence by sea on to Mumbai, has already been placed on the Russian agenda, and in fact is nearly completed, but the present war against Iran has made the issue even more urgent. “A rail link to the Indian Ocean should also be explored,” Khusnullin told TASS. “Risks related to the Bosphorus and the Strait of Hormuz might require alternative routes: through Turkmenistan, Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. Any options providing access to India are acceptable,” he said.
He also noted that the Russian construction industry requires financing. “The construction industry is already capable of generating approximately a trillion rubles in additional revenue annually. But if we guarantee this volume for five years to come, we can increase capacity and build even more,” he said. The interview will be published in its entirety on August 11.
Yuri Krupnov, co-author of a vision for connecting Siberian “science cities” with the industrialization of Afghanistan that was published as part of EIR’s 2014 Special Report The New Silk Road Becomes the World Land-Bridge, welcomed Khusnullin’s initiative in a Telegram post and an interview on Radio KP (owned by Komsomolskaya Pravda). He told interviewer Ivan Pankin that cooperation with Afghanistan in building the Trans-Afghanistan highway is the key to making Russia the only country “with access to five oceans.” Furthermore, he said, Russia should take the opportunity to apply in the region and further develop certain Russian technological expertise, from soil amelioration, to flax-growing and processing, to creating “multi-infrastructure” corridors. The skeptical Pankin added, “And don’t forget about a bridge to Sakhalin, and one to Alaska!” Krupnov chairs the Supervisory Council of the Institute for Demography, Migration and Regional Development.
While the Western media has been filled with reports about how Russia is approaching collapse because of the Ukraine conflict, it is continuing to work on important projects, including completion of the International North-South Transport Corridor, as well as discussing the development of new transport corridors to Siberia and the Far East, with its extensive riverine network.
Leading government officials have stated that Russia, because of the war waged against it by the West, has shifted its development focus to nations of the South and the East. President Putin himself has on various occasions referred to the program of Count Sergei Witte, who developed Siberia into a major source of wealth for the world as a whole.
