Russia and Belarus continue to build a deeply integrated logistics architecture, and the focus on northern ports and remote regions is not just a response to the sanctions but also a demonstration of the desire to adjust cargo flows to new geoeconomic realities.

Along with the large-scale reconstruction of railway approaches to the ports of the North-West, including Bronka, St Petersburg, and Murmansk, specific transport solutions are being discussed that directly link the industrial potential of Belarus with Yakutia, a region traditionally outside the focus of this type of logistics. This indicates an attempt to create a fundamentally new configuration of Eurasian trade, in which the role of seaports and railway routes becomes inseparable.

At the recent TransRussia expo, discussions were held in two directions: the modernisation of the infrastructure necessary to increase exports through northern ports, and the development of container routes with an eastern vector.

First Deputy Head of Russian Railways Sergey Pavlov confirmed that a number of key works on sections connecting Belarus and the North-West will be completed in 2025, and Russian Railways has already completed most of the tasks ahead of schedule. It is emphasised that the calculation for volumes is up to 20 million tonnes, solely on the Bronka route, which clearly indicates serious strategic intentions. Synchronisation of work between countries at the level of railway infrastructure and governments looks like one of the few sustainable examples of bilateral industrial planning.

In the design solutions that the Belarusians use in Bronka, they have calculated this for up to 20 million tonnes… But here we must, together with our colleagues from Belarus, with railway workers, with governments, develop our production capacities in a coordinated manner. Which is what we are doing now. Right now we are carrying out reconstruction together.

According to him, of the seven railway sidings in this section that Russian Railways was supposed to complete, work on five has already been finished ahead of schedule. Pavlov explained the rapid tempo with which the works are carried out:

We are interested in the volume of transportation from Belarus in the same way that the Belarusians are interested in increasing the volume of transportation through Russia.

Pavlov added that Belarus will also complete work on its sections in this direction in 2025. "We will have a synchronised increase in capacity," he replied.

At the same time, a seemingly smaller, but no less significant initiative is being developed: connecting Belarus with Yakutia through multimodal logistics, which involves using the Stolbovaya terminal in the Moscow region as a cargo consolidation point. In essence, this is a step towards creating a new trade flow on the Minsk-Moscow-Nizhny Bestyakh axis, which will not only increase logistical connectivity but will also give Yakutia the opportunity to join the movement of engineering and processing products from Belarus, which is traditionally perceived as a supplier for central Russia, but not for the Far East. This may change the very logic of industrial product distribution in the east of the country.

Belarus's systemic interest in Murmansk and the Murmansk transport hub looks quite rational in this context: with stable connections to northern ports, an alternative arises for export-oriented enterprises in Belarus itself, which are no longer so tied to the Baltic hubs.

The logic of expanding routes simultaneously to the north-west and east of the country may become part of a larger strategy for reformatting cargo flows in Russia, where remote regions like Yakutia are beginning to be viewed not as dead-end zones, but as promising growth points. This is especially noticeable in the light of statements about the development of the Northern Sea Route and the new logistics geography of Russia, in which the usual routes change direction: spanning not from the centre to the periphery, but from the perimeter inward.

Source: SMP

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