Russia has been unable to fully use Northern Sea Route, says Ukrainian intelligence

Moscow's plans to turn the Northern Sea Route (NSR) into a fully fledged transport artery have run up against a basic lack of infrastructure capacity.

Source: Foreign Intelligence Service of Ukraine

Quote: "Over the next five years alone, ports along the NSR will need dredging totalling approximately 60 million cubic metres. Similar work is also needed in ports in other regions of the Russian Federation, which only compounds the scale of the problem.

Previously, Moscow systemically relied on foreign contractors who had the necessary fleet and technology for large-scale dredging. The sanctions regime has effectively blocked this channel."

Details: Russia has not created alternatives in the form of its own capacity: statements about designing and building dredgers at the Admiralty Shipyards in St Petersburg remain declarations without practical results.

Quote: "The actual figures are telling. In 2025, using its own resources, Russia managed to dredge only about 2.2 million cubic metres in all of the country's ports. Given the stated needs, this is a marginal amount that does not change the situation."

Details: In theory, Moscow is counting on China's participation in developing northern port infrastructure. However, Beijing's interests are fundamentally different. China is interested in uninterrupted transit along the entire NSR route, not in developing individual Russian ports as logistics hubs.

In the coming years, this means a simple reality: large vessels will pass by without stopping. Even if China agrees to join dredging works, it is Beijing who will determine where and in which ports they will take place.

For Moscow, this means a loss of control over spatial development, an inability to purposefully support individual regions and a de facto dependence on external influence, the publication says.

"Overall, the situation demonstrates a systemic gap between Russia's stated arctic ambitions and its actual capabilities," the Foreign Intelligence Service of Ukraine sums up.

Background:

• Russia is using its only icebreaker to continue exporting liquefied natural gas (LNG) during the winter from the sanctioned Arctic LNG 2 project in the Arctic. This tanker is the only active vessel in Russia's LNG shadow fleet capable of sailing in frozen areas year-round.
• Bloomberg previously reported that shipments of Russian oil through the Arctic Ocean are increasingly slowing down. Last year, voyages to northern China from Russian ports in the Arctic and the Baltic Sea via the Northern Sea Route were three weeks longer than a year earlier.
• The monitoring group at the Institute for Black Sea Strategic Studies noted in August that Russia's Far East and north have become "sanctuaries" for sanctioned tankers.
• It was also previously reported that Rosmorport terminated a contract with the Onega Shipbuilding Plant for the construction of two innovative icebreakers with a total value of RUB 18.5 billion (approx. US$229 million). The agreement, signed in 2021, provided for the construction of 95-metre icebreakers with a capacity of 12-14 MW.
• It was reported in April last year that exports of Russian Arctic oil to China are rapidly growing, facilitated by ship-to-ship (STS) transfers that make it possible to bypass US sanctions. Reuters wrote about this, citing data from the analytics company Vortexa and traders.
• It was reported that in Russia's Far East, the share of crude oil transported by sanctioned tankers fluctuates month to month within 45-70%; the record was set, as in the Black Sea, in July 2025 – 69.3% of Russian crude oil from Russia's Far Eastern ports was carried by sanctioned tankers.

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