Donbass, India, Persian Gulf: Putin is making huge railway plans

Donbass, India, Persian Gulf
Putin is making huge railway plans

December 16, 2023, 5:24 p.m

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Vladimir Putin wants to stimulate the Russian economy with an infrastructure offensive. At a congress, the Kremlin leader presents several new railway lines. These are intended to open up not only India and the regions in the Far East, but also Ukrainian territory.

Vladimir Putin wants to develop the territories of Ukraine annexed by Russia via high-speed lines on Russian Railways. According to the Russian business newspaper “Vedemosti” The Russian head of state announced this and other projects at the fourth Russian Railway Congress on Friday in Moscow: “I would particularly like to emphasize: In the future we will definitely build high-speed lines to Luhansk and Donetsk,” Putin said verbatim. Connections to the so-called Novorossiya region (New Russia) are also planned. These include, among others, the occupied Ukrainian regions of Kherson and Zaporizhia.

To justify this, Putin referred to the reliability of Russian railways. According to the report, it handles 87 percent of freight traffic, around a third of passenger traffic and transports more than a billion people every year, the Kremlin chief said in his speech. The Russian railway is also essential for the Russian attack on Ukraine: it ensures reliable military transport and supplies defense companies with all the necessary raw materials and components, explained Putin. “Russian Railways and other transport companies have quickly restructured their logistics and created additional connections to the Far East, the north and south of the country and made a major contribution to the defense against sanctions.”

Travel time will be reduced fourfold

In the long term, the Russian head of state would like to connect 80 percent of the Russian population – 111 million Russians – to the high-speed network. In addition to the connections to the Ukrainian regions, this also includes the expansion of the so-called north-south corridor. This line is intended to connect the Russian ports on the Baltic Sea and the polar city of Murmansk with the ports on the Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean coasts.

“A seamless railway connection will be established on the route from Murmansk to Iran’s Bandar Abbas,” Putin promised. Currently, it takes 15 days to transport cargo from the polar city to India, he said. “Travel time will be reduced fourfold.”

Putin also announced the development of a north-south connection that would run through the Urals and Siberia. This is intended to link the ports in Arctic regions such as the Yamal Peninsula with China and Mongolia via the Trans-Siberian Railway. Another corridor from the Arctic to the south is planned in the Far East.

With the extensive railway projects, the Russian head of state also wants to stimulate the domestic economy, which is suffering from Western sanctions. Russian Railways has become one of the main customers of domestic mechanical engineering, industry, construction complex and vocational education system, Putin said at the Railway Congress. “In the past 20 years, the company has purchased over 9,000 Russian locomotives. More than 700 of the newest long-distance diesel locomotives have entered the route.”