A Large-Scale Maritime Project with India Is on the Verge of Collapse Due to russia’s Backwardness

The kremlin’s another attempts  to demonstrate its power on the international stage and build an alternative logistics route has ended in failure. The ambitious maritime project connecting vladivostok and the Indian port of Chennai – which was grandly agreed upon back in 2019 – has effectively been halted. The reason is simple: russia’s port infrastructure proved technologically incapable of supporting this route.

minister of transport of the rf andrei nikitin acknowledged in a letter to putin that russian transport operators showed no interest in the project at all. As it turned out, the port of vladivostok simply does not have  terminals for transshipping oil, liquefied natural gas, and fertilizers – precisely the goods that India needs.

For years, moscow has been declaring its readiness to become a “new logistics hub”,  but has failed to build the basic infrastructure needed to transship its own raw materials in the far east. Thus, despite statements about a “pivot to the East”,  russia is simply standing still. In the 2025/2026 fiscal year (April 1–March 31), total trade between russia and India fell by 12.8% (to $59.86 billion). Indian exports to russia declined by 7.9%, while imports from russia fell by 13.2%.

In an attempt to somehow justify closing of  the project, russia is now proposing an absurd idea – to combine this route with the Trans-Arctic Transport Corridor, which will only make logistics more expensive and complicated.

russia has once again proven itself to be an unreliable partner, capable only of making grandiose political declarations that are not backed by real economic capabilities.