Putin's Plan To Transport Goods Across The Arctic Ocean Has Failed Miserably

The Kremlin's Arctic ambitions have been shattered by statistics.

Russian President Vladimir Putin's plan to increase cargo transportation through the Arctic failed for the second year in a row. In 2025, 37.02 million tons of cargo will be transported along the Northern Sea Route (NSR) - 2.3% less than a year earlier. This follows from the analysis of the center "Gekon", the results of which are cited by "Kommersant". In 2024, 38 million tons of cargo were transported via the NSR. At that time, the figure showed an increase of 2 million tons per year. However, according to the presidential decree signed in 2018, transportation through the Arctic was to reach 80 million tons by 2024 and 200 million tons by 2030.

The NSR, which is 5,600 km long and crosses five Arctic seas, makes it possible to shorten the voyage to Asia by 7-10 days compared to the traditional route through the Suez Canal. But despite the speed of delivery, there are still few people willing to send cargo through the Russian Arctic. In 2025, Russian exports (60%, or 22.2 million tons) accounted for the bulk of the NSR cargo traffic. The share of LNG, oil and gas condensate was 83%. Supplies came from Yamal LNG, NOVATEK, Arctic LNG-2 and Gazprom Neft's Novoportovskoye field.

The volume of LNG shipments via the NSR decreased by 2.7% year-on-year in 2025. A decrease in oil shipments from the Novoportovskoye field was also recorded. Shipments of bulk cargoes decreased by more than 2.5 times, to 0.41 million tons, and general cargoes, which include Nornickel's products, by 2.2%, to 3.91 million tons.

At the same time, the volume of oil products shipments increased by 43%, to 1.27 million tons, and gas condensate shipments by 17%, to 1.55 million tons. In addition, the cargo flow of ore concentrate increased 13.5 times, to 365 thousand tons. However, this is explained by the shipment of 330 thousand tons of iron ore concentrate from the Murmansk Region to China. In general, the cargo turnover of the NSR ports amounted to 32.5 million tons, of which 29.1 million tons, or more than 90% falls on the port of Sabetta.

In 2026, the volume of traffic on the NSR will not exceed the level of 2025, because there are still no sources of growth, says the head of the consulting center "Gekon" Mikhail Grigoriev. According to him, in order to fully utilize the route running from the Kara Gate Strait to the Bering Strait, Russia needs to cooperate with other countries and look for new markets both in the eastern Pacific direction and in the western Atlantic direction.

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