Northern Sea Route. The enormity of russian plans

I already wrote about for whom may be profitable blocking of the Suez canal. Now I want to introduce you some of statistics of cargo transportation along the Northern Sea Route in 2024

At first let me remind you about planned cargo transportation volume wich voiced by russian 'governor-general'(as he likes to call himself) Yuri Trotnev in official russian propagandist media 'Russian gazette' in december of 2023, since 2 months after HAMAS attack:

Last year there were 34 million tons. The target for last year and this year is 32 million tons. The plan has been exceeded, but next year cargo traffic should increase to 80 million tons.

Before we'll move on to statistics

https://t.me/general_governor/3184

Governor-general (plural governors-general), or governor general (plural governors general), is the title of an official, most prominently associated with the British Empire. In the context of the governors-general and former British colonies, governors-general continue to be appointed as viceroy to represent the monarch of a personal union in any sovereign state over which the monarch does not normally reign in person (non-UK Commonwealth realm). Governors-general have also previously been appointed in respect of major colonial states or other territories held by either a monarchy or republic

Well! Now let's go back to statistics! - https://portnews.ru/news/372158/

The cargo flow along the Northern Sea Route (NSR, Sevmorput) in 2024 amounted to 37,893,531.9 tons, which exceeds the previous record result by more than 1.6 million tons. Such data is reported by the press service of the Rosatom State Corporation.
In addition, over the past year, a record number of transit voyages was made - 92, and a record for transit cargo was set - more than 3 million tons. This is almost one and a half times more than in 2023.

Hm... But where are 80 million tons which promissed earlier?🤨 So, the Houthis' efforts were in vain?
Further - https://www.rbc.ru/economics/20/02/2025/67b600549a79479b3c106fca

According to the results of 2024, 21.86 million tons of liquefied natural gas (LNG) were transported along the Northern Sea Route (NSR), that is, 57.69% of the total volume of cargo that was transported along this corridor, according to data from the consulting company Gekon, which relies on statistics from Rosmorrechflot. The volume of LNG transported along the transport artery in 2024 increased by 1.73 million tons (+8.6%) compared to 2023. LNG provided the main increase in cargo traffic along the NSR, which in 2024 reached a record 37.89 million tons.
Oil also makes a significant contribution to the transportation figures - 8.1 million tons were transported along the NSR in 2024 (21.37% of the total cargo traffic; year-on-year growth amounted to 312 thousand tons, or 4.01%).
Gas condensate transportation also showed significant growth, by 235.5 thousand tons, reaching 1.32 million tons, or 3.5% of the volume of cargo transported via the NSR.
Coal transportation increased slightly (by 16.9 thousand tons), to 597.6 thousand tons.

Let's count: 21.86 + 8.1 + 1.32 + 0.598 = 31.878 million tons of different hydrocarbons, or about 84% of all volume of cargo transported!

Now let's compare - https://www.informare.it/news/gennews/2025/20250221-canale-Suez-transiti-4Q-2024uk.asp

The net tonnage of ships transiting the canal in 2024 was equal to 524.6 million tons SCNT (-66.6%) and the revenues generated by transit fees paid from ships amounted to 178.7 billion Egyptian pounds (3.5 billion billion dollars), down -43.1% on 2023.

Despite a 50% reduction in cargo flow, 524.6 / 37.89 = 13.84 times more cargo was transported through the Suez Canal. I think HAMAS definetly deserve the award from inhabitants of lubyanka, where was born the 'free palestine' movement🤔

russian propagandist media reports

The Panamax container ship Flying Fish 1 has just completed its journey along the Northern Sea Route, navigating its way from St. Petersburg to Shanghai in 21 days at an average speed of 16 knots or about 30 kilometers per hour. What makes this voyage significant for the global shipping world and supply chain logistics is that navigating the traditional way through the Suez Canal would have taken two weeks longer. This achievement is now clearly feasible for objective comparison between the two routes.
The ship had originally departed from Istanbul en route via the Baltic Sea to and from St.Petersburg, sailed around the Norwegian coast and then across the Russian Arctic Ocean to Shanghai. The St.Petersburg-Shanghai leg took three weeks. According to Unctad, Panamax vessels currently cost an average of US$10,150 per day, meaning the NSR route was US$142,000 less expensive than the Suez alternative.

Very interesting! But what's further?

The Flying Fish 1 is registered in Panama and operated by EZ Safetrans Logistics based in Hong Kong. It arrived in Shanghai on September 26. The ship, capable of carrying 4,890 containers, marks a new standard for Arctic shipping, with previous ships holding only 1,500-2,000 containers. It did not require icebreaker support.

What does it mean? As minimum russian rosatomflot remains out of work after all - why do we need an icebreaker if we can do without it?🤔

I think, russians not interested in such development of events - they need to raise their price, right? They need to justify the presence of icebreakers. The impoverished and dying population of the regions of the far north needs to be proud, after all!🤔
BTW, Why don't we take a look at some of the important cities and towns?
Meet Murmansk - general and 'legendary' North sea port!

I've been there several times and last time in 2020. And I've got familiar persons there. They confirm these photographs

And This is Arkhangelsk. Not far from here in 1711 the famous russian scientist Mikhail Lomonosov was born

I've also been there! But only one time in 2012. There is no reason to believe that anything has changed there since then🤔

Do you know something about Tiksi? I'm show you

There are no roads here, except winter roads with many extremeky difficulties

There are no railways. All because of there are permafrost.
But there is an Airbase which earlier used regularly by strategic bombers Tu-95s in exercises, including one in 1999, in which bombers practice travelling to the Canadian arctic.

Peorle there surviving without perspectives. See the population rate

Let's be familiar with some characteristics of this port:

Total throughput capacity of the cargo sea terminal (thousand tons per year): 67,0
Maximum dimensions of vessels handled at the sea terminal (draft, length, width) (m): 3.9 / 129.5 / 15.8

Who needs this port with these parameters except russian militaries?🤔

Here is Yamburg - russian LNG an oil are shipped from here

There is even railway till Novy Urengoi! But not actively from 2015. And even if it is relaunched, it is highly doubtful that it will be able to handle large volumes of theoretically container traffic🤔
For example Passenger train goes from Novy Urengoy to Moscow almost in 3 days covering a distance of 3647 km.
First 700 kilometers the railway to town of Yuganskaya Ob' is single track with single-track bridges over Ob' and Yuganskaya Ob'

Let's see the population rate

There are about 5-6 thousand people permanently in Yamburg, but none of them live there permanently. They are shift workers of the Gazprom Dobycha Yamburg enterprise or contractors. Shift workers work at the Yamburg field for one or two months, after which they go home for a break between shifts, which usually lasts about a month.
There is no free access to Yamburg. There is a pass system on all roads. You can get to Yamburg with a pre-arranged pass.

In other words, this is the so-called 'departmental' village. And they call those workers 'vakhtoviki' - from 'vakhta' means shift work.
Nobody wants to live there permanently in conditions of permafrost without roads, with extremely cold in winter and highest prices for all commodities

There is also Varandey

Currently, Varandey, a shift camp at the Lukoil oil terminal with a capacity of 12 million tons of oil per year, is used for shipping oil produced in the northern part of the Timan-Pechora oil and gas province.

It's also 'departmental' settlement without permanent population and of course without roads and railway. Would you send containers here?🤨
That's all potential ports on this route!

But I know - someone of russian travel-blogers will of course disagree with much of what I wrote above! Let's see on these guys!
So-called 'ambassador of Arctic' (as he likes to call himself) Bogdan Bulychev and Aleksei Zhirukhin

Joined their company Aleksandr Elikov. Here they all together with some of russian officials - mentioned earlier 'general-governor' and so-called 'Minister of Development of the Far East and the Arctic' Aleksey Chekunkov.

Since december 2022 Chekunkov sanctioned by EU. Let's see for what:

Under his control, the resources of the eastern regions of Russia were used in the so-called 'Donetsk People’s Republic', the EU sanctions justification states.

Read more in russian (use translator!) here - https://verstka.media/portret-rossiyskogo-ministra-alexeya-chekunkova-almazy-lobbizm-i-investicii-v-chudo-mashinu

Another couple of good shots

Here Elikov and Bulychev with governor of Amur region

And here Bulychev with another 'polar traveler' and also member of russian geographical society Evgeniy Shatalov gathered together with Trutnev, Chekunkov and the Governor of Yakutia Aysen Nikolayev

For more information here Bulychev with Governor of Magadan region Sergei Nosov

And here here he is with his wife and member of his travel crew near ex-governor of Magadan region Vladimir Pechenyi

...with ex-Governor of Yaroslavl region Anatoliy Lisitsyn

And here young Bogdan (around in 2013) with another ex-Governor of Yaroslavl region Sergei Yastrebov together with 'first cosmic woman' and state Duma deputy Valentina Tereshkova

All these photos should tell us that Bogdan Bulychev - son of ex-Deputy Head of the Labor Department of Magadan region Yuriy Bulychev - not 'simply random' person🤔

A little 'apart' from listed above Sergei Simonov a.k.a Saiman He also member of russian geographical society and likes to ride to Tiksi on the winter roads

And like his colleague Bogdan going to the front 'with humanitarian aid'...

...Saiman likes to travel to the occupied regions of Ukraine, about which he writes in Telegram-channel - https://t.me/saimanblog

All these 'heroes' will tell you about how beautiful russia in winter, how happy and undoubtedly 'heroic' it's people and etc...

In the context of our story we can't do without icebreakers

I mentioned so-called 'russian geographical society' earlier, so let me also remind you who its leader is - now already ex-minister of defense and active secretary of the Security Council of so-called 'russian federation' and war criminal - Sergei Shoigu

And so-called 'chairman of the 'Board of Trustees' - also known as war criminal and part-time so-called 'president'of so-called 'russian federation'

These members of 'Board of Trustees' gives us an idea of who the main beneficiaries of this propaganda resource are. Here is almost the entire 'galaxy' of the main russian oligarchs included in the sanctions lists, as well as State Duma deputies and other persons close to the russian Tsar. Even chinese billionaire and owner of Alibaba Jack Ma, probably on orders from the Chinese Communist Party😃

You can read more about this list HERE. But in russian - use built-in translaror!

BTW, Canada added 'russian geographical society' (also known as RGO - 'russkoye geographicheskoe obschestvo') to their sanction list under 466 position

Now it will become clearer to you why all the bloggers listed above have no rights to deviate from the official agenda - otherwise they will stop feeding them or even start persecuting them. And for western people they create the picture of 'russia - country of borderless oporunities'. And Northern Sea Route - just only one of them.
By the way it's time to returh to it! What they are writing else?

This route is part of a broader trend, with up to 20 Arctic transits between Russian and Chinese ports taking place this year. According to forecasts by Rosatom the route will see 270m tons of cargo in 2035. Generally, a Panamax vessel ranges from 50,000 to 80,000 deadweight tons (DWTs), implying that Russia predicts between 3,850 and 5,400 Panamax vessels using the route annually within a decade, providing cost savings over the Suez Canal route of between US$546 million and US$767 million per annum.

Having failed once again to reach the previously planned 80 million, they are already predicting 270 million in 2035! That is, in just 10 years🤣 They even counted all 'cost savings'! Let's try to hold out and then we will definitely return to this material, ok? This is very interesting!😉
Let's see what write another specialized press

Since the Red Sea and the Suez Canal account for about 15% of global trade and twice for global container traffic, this deviation (The Great Rerouting) comes with substantial costs, disruptions, and delays, mostly for European supply chains. Using the case between Shanghai, the world’s largest container port, and Rotterdam, the largest container port in Europe, a container shipping service using the Suez Route covers about 10,600 nautical miles in about 27 days if a speed of 16 knots is assumed, and with no ports of call. In reality, a typical Asia-Europe sequence can take 35 days with 5 to 10 ports of call. The alternative, the Cape Route, involves a distance of 13,800 nautical miles in about 35 days at a speed of 16 knots, adding a minimum of 7 days of transit, but figures of 10 to 14 days are more common due to ports of call. The risk is also reflected in cargo and ship insurance rates, which have increased up to 1% of the total cargo value, from the usual 0.1%.

Well, russian propaganda has noted everything fairly! But

The Northern Sea Route is not an alternative, even if it appears to be an attractive proposition, with a transit time of 20 days, which is only available for a few months during the summer (July to September). However, there are no container shipping lines using this route, and its commercial potential is negligible at this point.

Another quote

The Northern Sea Route (NSR) along the Arctic coast of Russia. This is the maritime route that is likely to be free of ice first and thus represents the highest commercial potential. It would reduce a maritime journey between East Asia and Western Europe from 21,000 km using the Suez Canal to 12,800 km, cutting transit time by 10-15 days. During the Soviet Era, the NSR was used to resupply military and resource extraction along the Soviet Arctic. Still, this traffic dropped in the early 1990s with the collapse of the Soviet Union. It was only in the late 2000s that interest and traffic picked up. In 2009, two German ships, Beluga Fraternity and Beluga Foresight, completed with a Russian icebreaker escort the first commercial journey across the Northern Sea Route (or Northeast Passage) linking Busan to Rotterdam with several stopovers. Other shipping lines have also run trials, but these trials did not show much commercial potential. The 3,600 TEU ships Venta Maersk used this route in 2018, representing the first trial inter-range container service. In 2024, the first Panamax containership crossed the route without an icebreaker escort...
First, it is uncertain to what extent the receding perennial ice cover is a confirmed trend or simply part of a long-term climatic cycle. It is also difficult to predict annual variations in the ice cover, underlining unstable navigation conditions. Even if the Arctic routes became regularly open during the summer, the Arctic would remain closed to commercial navigation during the winter months (unless there are dramatic shifts in weather patterns). As of 2010, the ice-free conditions of most Arctic shipping routes were only for about 30 days. (note - It was under these very conditions that the container ship reported by russian propagandists passed) There is uncertainty in terms of the seasonal shipping window, making the planning of voyages and itineraries uncertain. Since maritime shipping companies are looking for regular and consistent services, this seasonality has limited commercial appeal. There are uncertain economic gains from shorter Arctic shipping routes.
Second, there is very limited economic activity around the Arctic Circle, implying that shipping services crossing the Arctic have almost no opportunity to drop and pick up cargo as they pass through. Thus, unlike other long-distance commercial shipping routes, there is limited revenue generation potential for shipping lines along the Arctic route, which forbids the emergence of transshipment hubs. Shipping in the Arctic is suitable for point-to-point services that directly link a source port to a destination port. This value proposition could improve if resources (oil and mining) around the Arctic are extracted in greater quantities, which would favor bulk shipping. This would mostly take place along the Siberian coast.
The Arctic remains a frontier in terms of weather forecasting, charting, and building a navigation system, implying uncertainties and unreliability for navigation. Thus, climatic change may impose an additional risk to navigation around the Arctic. The decrease in sea ice extent and its smaller volume are linked with the growing mobility of summer sea ice as well as more coastal erosion. Substantial efforts have to be made to ensure that navigation can take place in a safe manner along well-defined and patrolled navigation routes. The bathymetry in the Arctic is usually shallow, which limits the size of the ships that could be operated in these waters. Ships also need to be certified to operate in arctic conditions, which increases costs and undermines the economic benefits of the route. Circulation is often required to take place as a convoy spearheaded by an icebreaker, which is subject to additional costs. (note - As you may recall, that container ship was not accompanied by an icebreaker and, accordingly, the price did not include Rosatomflot's services) Insurance rates are also much higher in taking care of the involved risks, which are not straightforward to assess.
The setting of rail corridors between China and Europe across Central Asia (the Eurasian landbridge, also known as the Belt and Road initiative) is offering an option that is more stable and time performing than the Arctic routes...
Polar routes remain a niche market that has potential, but the nature and extent of this market remain unclear. In 2021, several shipping lines, including MSC, underlined that they do not seek to use Arctic routes in the future, mainly because navigation is hazardous and unreliable ship and crew rescue options.

There is something to think about🤔

Now let's dive deeper into the depths of Russian projects! This is what a certain publication Eurasianecomnomics tells us

Today, there is already an explosive growth in traffic along the Northern Sea Route (NSR): according to the forecast in the NSR Development Plan until 2035, a cargo flow of 36 million tons was expected in 2023. Although today, this figure has already been exceeded by 250 thousand tons. And this year, there should be a more than twofold increase in traffic - more than 90 million tons of cargo.

🤣They planned 36 millions but they've got 'explosive growth' in 250 thousands tons! 0.7% - definetly atomic explosion!🤣 It was probably that container ship that provided it🤔 Now russians will point this 'unfortunate' container ship at everyone in the world, proving its 'efficiency', while deliberately keeping silent about the details of how they deal with everything else😃
Please note that this figure planned to transport 90 million - 10 million more than Trutnev promised. But, as they say, something went wrong🤔
And all this is according to their development plan until 2035. You are on the right path, comrades!

According to the plans of the Russian Government, by 2030 the volume of cargo transportation along the NSR should increase to 150 million tons, and the plan for the development of the Northern Sea Route until 2035 has an even more ambitious figure – more than 216.45 million tons.

Although a little earlier we were promised 270 million tons🙄

Some experts believe that if the ice melts, then everything will be just fine from the point of view of traffic; and if there is no warming, then the costs of passage of cargo ships with icebreakers may be lower than those that an encounter with pirates promises. Moreover, Russia has the largest icebreaker fleet in the world - today, according to the Ministry of Transport, it consists of 34 diesel-electric icebreakers and seven nuclear-powered ones.

If the ice will melted, for who and for what will your 34 icebreakers be needed?
If you expect the ice to melt, why do you need new icebreakers?
But if the ice conditions will the same, are you sure that the speed of passage will be the same as in the summer?
Any thoughts?🤨

Then russian propagandists begin their descent from heaven to earth😃

It can be said that the idea of an alternative transit, or the 'Northern Silk Road', as some media outlets called the Northern Sea Route, did not work out: the ice did not melt, and dealing with pirates with the help of private military companies turned out to be cheaper and easier than driving transport ships with icebreakers.

Apparently, hopes were also placed on the Somali pirates, as well as on the Houthis, but they were not fulfilled🤔

Experts of the Eurasian Economic Union note that the implementation of further development of the Northern Sea Route is associated with significant technological, economic and political problems, difficulties with the communications infrastructure. Only ships with an ice class are allowed to pass through the NSR, and their cost is 10-30% higher.
Other areas that should minimize the risks of using the NSR include creating a sustainable communications system, improving navigation safety, and an emergency rescue system in the Arctic.
So far, none of the satellite communications operators operating in the region operate in the polar regions above 70-75° north latitude. The analysis conducted allows us to assert that due to high geomagnetic activity in the polar latitudes, there are problems with the operation of navigation systems.

Builded plans but how it will be implemented - not thought. It seems that we have already seen the results of this in the 2024 figures🤔
But these are certainly not the only and perhaps not the main difficulties!

There are also technical problems with piloting merchant ships with icebreakers. The width of the nuclear icebreakers "Arktika" (Project 22220) is 34 meters, the width of the four other nuclear ships in the Rosatom flotilla is 29.2 meters. Even the largest icebreaker of Project 10510 "Lider", which is only under construction, will have a width of 47.7 meters. And this is not so much by today's standards....
In the list of the largest container ships by the end of 2023, the first 80 lines are occupied by ships with a width of 61 meters, although in 2020 there were only 25 of them. They are followed by several dozen container ships with a width of about 59 meters. The largest Chinese container ships built in 2006-2011 (Cosco Oceania, Cosco Asia, Cosco Guangzhou, CSCL Star, CSCL Venus) have a width of 43 to 52 meters. They cannot squeeze through behind Russian icebreakers. But there are no problems with passage through the Suez Canal yet: its width reaches 135 meters, and ships up to 77.5 meters wide and with a displacement of up to 240 thousand tons can pass through it.

WOW! How unexpectable disclosure!🤣

And in the end the mother-nature does not live up to expectations😃

With hopes for global warming, everything is also very ambiguous.
Warming can lead to the melting of permafrost, and this will seriously complicate or make impossible the construction work on the creation of coastal infrastructure. And if such infrastructure is created, it may not pay off even with international commercial exploitation of the NSR.
Warming is a very insidious thing from the point of view of the economy - we can lose from the melting of permafrost much more than we can gain from navigation along the Northern Sea Route. Permafrost occupies two-thirds of the area of russia, and up to half of all oil and gas production capacities and pipelines are concentrated on it. The scale of the possible damage is not difficult to imagine.

How about another plans?

The Baltic Shipyard is scheduled to deliver two serial universal nuclear icebreakers of Project 22220 – Yakutia and Chukotka (classmates of Arktika) – by the end of 2024 and in 2026. In 2023, state contracts were signed for the construction of two more vessels of the same project – Leningrad and Stalingrad. The keel of the first one was laid in January of this year, the keel of the second one is scheduled for October of next year. The Zvezda Shipbuilding Corporation is building an icebreaker of Project 10510 Lider with a capacity of 120 MW – it should be launched in 2027.

Another propaganda media is broadcasting

By 2030, 11 icebreakers should provide cargo flow in the Arctic zone of the Russian Federation. Taking into account the current fleet, three icebreakers of the Lider series should be built by that date, Vladimir Arutyunyan, Chief of Staff of Marine Operations of the Federal State Unitary Enterprise Atomflot, said at the Arctic Forum in Arkhangelsk on Thursday.

OK. But what's in reality?

The super-powerful nuclear icebreaker Rossiya should be built approximately by 2030, said First Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation Denis Manturov. Initially, the vessel was scheduled to be put into operation in 2027.

This is the same big icebreaker that has to escort container ships that won't fit in its wake. Well, well🤨
Meanwhile, it is noted

In order to cope with the growing cargo flow, at least 3 Lider icebreakers should be built by 2030.

OK, let's wish them luck!😉
But so far, as practice shows, the Houthis are the ones who are doing the best job of this task, and Russia is supplying them with intelligence data to slow down traffic through the Suez Canal, against which background the growth of cargo turnover by several million tons should seem 'explosive'😃
And finally, listen to the captain Tymur Rudov. He speaks in russian, but there are subtitles - don't forget to switch on it

They all are defeated

"Since I was six years old, I had the desire to destroy Israel. Yes, that was my greatest desire since childhood. That is, it was always with me. The strategy of the Islamic Revolution is the destruction and disappearance of the Zionist regime of war"

😀

Do you want to be next?😉

Look for who benefits

As likes to say so-called 'great geostrategist', also known as russian czar, playing the role of 'president' to create the appearance of democracy for Western countries: "Is fecit cui prodest"

"But sanctions are no longer enough for the Anglo-Saxons. They turned to sabotage - incredibly, but true - by organizing explosions on the international gas pipelines of the Nord Stream, which run along the bottom of the Baltic Sea. In fact, they have begun to destroy the pan-European energy infrastructure. It is obvious to everyone who benefits from this. Those who benefited did so, of course."

Well, probably this statement also relevant to other situations?🤔
Let's look at so-called Northern Sea Route
in the official government media "Rossiyskaya Gazeta" it is written

Freight traffic along the Northern Sea Route (NSR) this year will grow to a record level - 36 million tons, 34.7 million tons have already been transported, the Ministry of Eastern Development told Rossiyskaya Gazeta. Last year there were 34 million tons. The target for last year and this year is 32 million tons. The plan has been exceeded, but next year cargo traffic should increase to 80 million tons.

🤨M-hm...🤔

Annother quote from same source:

Over the past 25 years, ice cover in the Arctic has decreased threefold. Ice-class vessels begin navigation along the NSR as early as February - March. The route is in demand not only by Russian, but also by foreign carriers, because only two routes connect Europe and Asia by water: through the Suez Canal and along the northern seas. According to Deputy Prime Minister and Plenipotentiary Representative of the President of the Russian Federation in the Far Eastern Federal District Yuri Trutnev, the Suez Canal is less reliable due to its narrow passage. In short, an economic-geographical movement upward to the Russian North is necessary.

🤨M-hm...🤔

Speaking apout person of Yuri Trutnev we shouldn't to forget, that he regularly visits the zone of the so-called 'special military operation' - this is the name given to the war unleashed by Moscow in Ukraine - to provide support to 'our guys'.

More useful information about him talks to us Aleksei Navalny, which was killed in polar prison by order of putin (switch on english subtitles)

Nearby Trutnev on the picture is the 'Arctic blogger number 1', as he calls himself, member of so-called 'russian geographical society' (added in Canadian sanction list) Bogdan Bulychev...

...who also states that he is the holder of a Guinness record, which is very controversial, given the fact that there is no mention of him on the official website of the book of records. He also often travels to the 'special military operation' zone for the same purpose

In 'peaceful' times, between these trips, he talks about how beautiful his country is, led by the 'still young and full of strength' putin, which, of course, 'no have alternative', although he declares his 'complete apoliticality'.
He also calls himself 'Ambassador of Arctic', which, combined with the fact of an undisguised strong friendship with the president’s representative in the russian Far East and others, leads us to believe that he is tasked with popularizing the Arctic, including NSR. For this purpose, beautiful videos are made about car racing against nuclear icebreakers

Of course on behalf of his master😀

With his 'complete apoliticality' and indefatigable canine devotion, this citizen has earned himself personal restrictive measures from the United States - https://t.me/bogdee/761. What an unpleasant surprise! And meeting US ambassador in so-called 'russia' Sullivan didn't help - https://t.me/bogdee/757 And these people teach us democracy!🤣

OK, enought with these persons!
Let's compare the number of ships and the total tonnage passing along these ship routes!
The Suez Canal in 2023 reached the shipping volume of about 26,000 vessels with a total tonnage of about 1,600 million tons
According another source number of ships passing through the Suez Canal in 2022 was around 22000
What do we have with Northern Sea? Russian ministry of transportation reports:

The volume of cargo transportation along the Northern Sea Route (NSR) in 2020 increased to 33 million tons compared to 31.5 million tons a year earlier, the state corporation Rosatom (it owns a fleet of nuclear icebreakers) reported.
“In 2020, cargo turnover along the Northern Sea Route amounted to 32.97 million tons. This is almost 1.5 million tons more than in 2019, when 31.5 million tons were transported,” the report notes.
The target for the federal project 'Northern Sea Route' regarding the volume of cargo transportation along the Northern Sea Route in 2020 was 29 million tons. The goal of the project is to develop the Northern Sea Route and increase freight traffic along it to 80 million tons in 2024.

Thus, the tonnage transported through the Suez Canal is 46 times higher than the cargo turnover of the NSR.
And as we can see, russian authorities planned 80 million tons for 2024 back in 2021. But there seem to be no objective reasons for the increase🤔

A total of 8329 separate voyages took place on the NSR in 2016–2019...
During the four years the cargo volume on the NSR increased from 7.5 million tons in 2016–31.5 million tons in 2019, a 4-fold increase. Most of the cargo was for export to the European market consisting of liquid hydrocarbons supplied by two natural resource projects in the Ob Bay – LNG and gas condensate from the Yamal LNG plant at the port of Sabetta and crude oil from the Arctic Gate terminal at Cape Kammeniy (Novy Port) further south in the Ob Bay. In 2019, 254 shipments of LNG were brought from Sabetta by 23 LNG carriers to foreign markets and 41 shipments of gas condensate by 6 tankers. In addition comes transport of prefabricated LNG modules for the construction of the Yamal LNG plant, delivered to the port of Sabetta in 2016 and 2017.

It is important to note that the majority - up to 87% of traffic - were domestic voyages:

Domestic shipping was the dominant type of shipping activity on the NSR with 87% of all voyages in 2016, 92% in 2017, 84% in 2018 and 76% in 2019...
International transit voyages via the NSR were only 8 in 2016, 12 in 2017, 17 in 2018 and 14 in 2019; or 0.4–0.8% of all the voyages during each year... Of the 51 international transit voyages during the four years, 47 carried cargo totaling 980,676 tons

By other words, International carriers were not particularly interested in the Northern Sea Route🤔 But suddenly cargo turnover is expected to more than double in 2024. Doesn't this seem strange?

Yet another quote:

Due to the constraints of Just-In-Time, it is not really interesting for most container-shipping-companies to go through the NSR. They prefer regular routes where they can load and unload in several ports. Whereas in the Arctic, there are no ports with large hinterlands that would be available for them to increase traffic.
“For bulk shipping working on a tramp ad hoc basis, it is very difficult to recoup the investment if the carrier is not sure it will be able to sail regularly in Arctic waters. Running a high ice-class vessel in warmer waters is a waste of money since these ships are more expensive to buy and to run. Shipping companies thus prefer security through long-term service contracts, which are hard to get because the market is still limited", Lasserre says and adds:
“For these reasons, there is not going to be an explosion of traffic on the NSR with containerships, for now. Bulk and container ships are still going to need icebreaker-capacities to navigate in the Arctic. Maybe in 20 years, it may be different but for now, such vessels are needed. They are expensive to buy and to operate.”

Now let me remind you that in 2022 so-called 'russia' started hot phase of war in Ukraine, which has lasted since 2014, when so-called 'russia' first seized Crimea, and then, under the guise of “civilian” war, started a war in the Donbass and Lugansk region.
And on october 7, 2023, the largest terrorist attack in the history of Israel occurred. Teract was in the scale of full military operation and was planned by the so-called 'freedom fighters' of the so-called 'palestine', sponsored and supported by UNRWA and iranian ayatollas regime. In response to this, Israel started a war in the Gaza Strip, in response to which, in turn, a terrorist gang called the Houthis declared war on Israel and began to terrorize the international shipping route
It is also worth recalling that the Hamas, Hezbollah, Taliban, Palestinian Islamic jihad and the mentioned Houthis movements have a close connection with so-called 'russia'. For example, on October 26, almost 3 weeks later, a delegation from the 'political wing' of Hamas arrived in Moscow

And 24 february in moscow visited till 14 islamic radical terrorist groups, including listed above

To relatively briefly characterize the panopticon with which the Kremlin 'sniffed' (yes, like dogs😀), the Taliban are banned in so-called 'russia', what does not prevent them from coming to Moscow at an official invitation, and russian Minister of Foreign Affairs kalantaryan-lavrov calling them 'sane people' which was especially highlighted in the headlines of the russian propaganda media

According the same russian propaganda media these 'sane people' are going to bring back the practice of stoning women for adultery:

"We will soon introduce punishment for adultery. We will publicly flog women. We will publicly stone them to death."
Akhundzada also promised to make Sharia law work in Afghanistan. “I told the mujahideen that we are telling the West: we have been fighting against you for 20 years and we will fight for another 20 years and even more. This did not end [with the departure of US troops]. This does not mean that now we will just sit and drink tea. We will bring Sharia law to this land," he added.
Since coming to power in 2021, the Taliban have suspended classes for girls in secondary schools and girls in universities, banned the presence of women in universities, including faculty members, and ordered the suspension of women from work in all national and international non-governmental organizations.

And, of course, the Taliban are also in 'complete order' regarding Israel:

It became known that the leaders of the Taliban group (*terrorist organization banned in Russia) in connection with the events in Israel and the Gaza Strip appealed to the leaders of a number of countries in South-West Asia. The request from the Afghan Taliban* is the same: to allow their troops to enter Israel along the transport corridor to help the Palestinians take Jerusalem.
According to the latest data, a corresponding appeal was sent from Kabul to the governments of Iran, Iraq and Jordan.

😀

So! Let's get back to the ships!

The volume of general cargo, which among other things including containers, in 2022 was around 5 millions tons. To imagine the scale:

The Suez Canal Authority has shattered its record for the daily number of ships passing through the strategic waterway. On Wednesday, it handled a total of 87 vessels, easily surpassing the previous record of 75, which was set on February 6, 2019.
Vessels with a total tonnage of 4.8 million dwt traversed the waterway in both directions on Wednesday, including 38 from the north and 49 from the south. The ships that passed through the canal on Wednesday included 18 container ships, 26 bulkers, 18 large oil tankers, 10 gas carriers and 15 ships of other types.
The new record, coming six months after the giant boxship Ever Given went aground and blocked traffic along this critical maritime chokepoint, has validated SCA's desire to accelerate an expansion of the canal.

For simplicity, we take the very roughly calculated average tonnage of one ship (divide 4,8 megatons 87 ships) and multiply it by the number of container ships 18, we get about 993 tons. Perhabs it is average gross tonnage, then we need to get the approximate payload volume. According to very rough and not entirely correct estimates, this should amount to 700 tons. This means that the entire annual volume of container traffic along the Northern Sea Route can be transported through the Suez Canal in only one week.
Please forgive me for the illiterate, rough calculations. I am not an expert on ships, but I am sure the numbers given are as fair as possible in relation to the Northern Sea Route.

Since the beginning of the tragic events on October 7, about 110-120 container ships per day have passed through the Suez Canal. Since the beginning of 2024, more and more container ships have begun to sail through the Cape of Good Hope. Today, about 35 container ships a week pass through the canal, while through the Cape - 149:

The first observable decrease in weekly passages of the Canal for this segment occurred in the last weeks of November 2023. In total, weekly Container Ship traffic through the Suez Canal has decreased by almost 80% over the past thirteen weeks. Conversely, over 115 vessels in this segment have passed via the Cape of Good Hope per weedek on average since the beginning of 2024. At its peak so far, Container Ship traffic via the Cape totalled nearly 160 vessels in the first week of February – a 222.4% increase over the weekly average preceding the R Sea crisis.

Of course, not only container shipping suffered

Sad pictures. The Suez Canal handled 12-15% of global trade and 25-30% of container traffic. Now the end consumer of cheap chinese junk, for the most part adheres to primitive leftist views, is now forced to pay a little more out of their wallet than usual. He will undoubtedly blame America and its satellites for everything, while completely forgetting that most commercial ships, in particular the same container ships, are built in the evil-capitalist's shipyards of South Korea and Japan and engines for these ships also built in 'vile-capitalist' states, like Switzerland, Finland, Germany (both are members of NATO) and South Corea. But there is no need to know this, America and Israel are to blame for everything, calls for the destruction of which are written on the flags of the Ansar Allah movement, aka 'Houthis'😀 And muslim Egypt is suffering greatly from a lack of revenue, but this does not seem to bother the Iranian ayatollahs, who control their puppets from Ansar Allah

BTW, Cape of Good Hope is a territory of South Africa.

What is South Africa's position on Israel and so-called 'palestine'? Let's see!

On this picture we see the fourth president of SAR Jacob Zuma shaking hands with Khaled Mashal, far right - Mousa Abu Marzook. They are palestinian senior members of HAMAS

South Africa has no regrets about becoming the first country to file a lawsuit against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to end its “deadly and relentless genocidal bombardment” of Gaza.
This is according to Deputy President Paul Mashatile who attended a question and answer session in the National Council of Provinces on Tuesday.
Speaking in Parliament, Deputy President Mashatile said the United Nations estimates that more than 30 000 Palestinians, including over 10 000 children, have been killed.
“Over 70 000 have been injured while 10 000 are missing under rubble. This brings the number of civilian casualties to about 110 000, amounting to roughly 5% of Gaza's 2.3 million population. We will not condone genocide,” he told Members of Parliament.

The 'esteemed' vice president once again refers to 'the millions of billions' of victims of the 'unfortunate palestinians' provided to him by the Ministry of Health of the same Hamas. Right, those guys, who shakes hands with previous president. From now on all friends are gathered!😀
By the way, what about numbers of killed?
American jewish scientist Abraham Wyner reports:

If Hamas’ numbers are faked or fraudulent in some way, there may be evidence in the numbers themselves that can demonstrate it. While there is not much data available, there is a little, and it is enough: From Oct. 26 until Nov. 10, 2023, the Gaza Health Ministry released daily casualty figures that include both a total number and a specific number of women and children.
The first place to look is the reported “total” number of deaths. The graph of total deaths by date is increasing with almost metronomical linearity, as the graph in Figure 1 reveals.

This regularity is almost surely not real. One would expect quite a bit of variation day to day. In fact, the daily reported casualty count over this period averages 270 plus or minus about 15%. This is strikingly little variation. There should be days with twice the average or more and others with half or less. Perhaps what is happening is the Gaza ministry is releasing fake daily numbers that vary too little because they do not have a clear understanding of the behavior of naturally occurring numbers. Unfortunately, verified control data is not available to formally test this conclusion, but the details of the daily counts render the numbers suspicious. Taken together, what does this all imply? While the evidence is not dispositive, it is highly suggestive that a process unconnected or loosely connected to reality was used to report the numbers. Most likely, the Hamas ministry settled on a daily total arbitrarily. We know this because the daily totals increase too consistently to be real. Then they assigned about 70% of the total to be women and children, splitting that amount randomly from day to day. Then they in-filled the number of men as set by the predetermined total. This explains all the data observed.

But, perhabs, SAR authorities (and left-wingers too) have no time for mathematical statistics, the laws of normal distribution, scatter, calculation errors, etc. For what? Moreover, the professor is Jewish! Can a Jew be trusted?😀 You won't achieve your goals this way!
Yes, but what is our goal?

Arctic shipping could be made profitable if shipping companies were interested, but that raises the question 'what kind of shipping company would perform in the Arctic segment'? But in the short term, most shipping companies are saying that for now, it is definitively not profitable, because of just-in-time constraints, and the need for very long-term contracts."

How to create demand for a service that is clearly not in demand? The russian military propaganda media 'Military Review' will help us here:

Naval exercises by South Africa and other countries near the Cape of Good Hope could completely cut off traffic between Asia and Europe.
Yemen's Houthi attacks on merchant ships in the Red Sea, which intensified following retaliatory strikes on northern Yemen by US-led coalition forces, have sharply reduced maritime traffic along the shortest route between Asia and Europe through the Suez Canal. Yemeni rebels, who sided with Hamas immediately after the start of the IDF military operation, initially tried to attack only ships traveling to and from Israeli ports with drones and ballistic missiles.
However, now the leaders of the Islamist movement Ansar Allah have declared all Western ships in the Red Sea, both civilian and military, as targets. An exception was made only for Russian and Chinese merchant ships due to the fact that Moscow and Beijing openly condemn the aggressive actions of the United States and allies against Yemen.

🤣 red totalitary communist china and moscow (in the recent past, the capital of the largest communist empire, now very clearly gravitating towards its totalitarian past) condemn the aggressive actions of the United States and allies against Yemen!🤣
Watch carefully: The terrorist attack on October 7 is a 'fight for freedom', the war against terrorists is an act of aggression; declaring war on a country with which there are not even common borders under a flag with the inscription 'Death to America, Death to Israel' and sinking merchant ships is a 'fight for freedom', striking targets creating a terrorist threat is an 'act of aggression'. Don't get confused!🤣

Houthi rebels launched a series of anti-ship ballistic missiles at a Chinese-owned and -operated oil tanker, according to the U.S. Central Command, in a move that has angered Beijing.
This attack came despite the Houthis' previous assurances "they would not attack Chinese vessels" in the strategic waters of the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden," CENTCOM said.

Undoubtedly, the Chinese do not recognize the blow to their trough, since this contradicts one of the 'unwritten communist laws': "We do not recognize it, which means it did not happen. This is necessary for our common cause"🤣
And communists and various kinds of terrorists (in fact, communists, if you look at their history, have always been terrorists) always have one common goal - to sow instability, so that in the resulting chaos, which the 'snickering bourgeoisie' are so afraid of, they can be an 'island of stability'
I'll continue to quote:

Thus, the aggressive actions of the United States and Great Britain in the Middle East region, the stated purpose of which was to “protect” maritime traffic in the Red Sea, as has happened many times before, led to the opposite result.
However, the alternative route may also become unsafe, some experts say. The Republic of South Africa, on the southern tip of which the Cape of Good Hope is located, strongly condemns the actions of the Israeli army in the Gaza Strip, where the IDF has been carrying out virtual genocide of Palestinians for four months. Earlier, South Africa filed a lawsuit at the International Court of Justice against Israel, accusing it of war crimes against the Palestinians.
At the end of February last year, a three-day naval exercise between the Chinese Navy, the South African National Defense Force and the Russian Navy took place in the Indian Ocean. Why not, for example, repeat similar exercises closer to the Cape of Good Hope, declaring this zone unsuitable for civilian, or indeed any, shipping during their conduct, as is required by international standards. Surely other countries not controlled by the United States, for example, members of the BRICS, could take part in the exercises, the purpose of which could be 'countering terrorism and illegal maritime traffic.' The main thing is that they last longer.
This will be a disaster primarily for Europe and other countries of the so-called collective West, and will also affect international trade, the supply of goods and hydrocarbons to the United States. Naval exercises by South Africa and other countries near the Cape of Good Hope could completely cut off traffic between Asia and Europe.
China, which accounts for the largest volume of maritime traffic previously passing through the Suez Canal and the Red Sea, could easily take advantage of an alternative route for trade with Europeans along the Northern Sea Route. Moreover, this route, although not the most comfortable, is also shorter than through Suez.
But the Americans and EU countries, mired in Russophobia, will either have to incur colossal losses while finishing off their economies, or change their policy towards the Russian Federation. This, for now hypothetical, problem with many unknowns may well arise before Western leaders. By the way, from the same Japan to European ports along the Northern Sea Route is much closer than through the Suez Canal, not to mention going around the south of Africa.

This is called 'making an offer you can't refuse'.
What's the result? Here it seems to myself (I may be wrong) several birds killed with one stone:
1) tangible advantages for the so-called “Russia”: since Ukraine massively uses UAVs on the battlefield, assembled from components from China, there is a high degree of probability that the speed of their delivery will slow down and at the same time its cost will rise;
2)Prospective benefit: blocking traditional shipping routes with the transfer of cargo flow to the NSR will allow us to keep the cargo flow under control, and in the case of coordinated work with its ally in the axis of evil, communist China, if the latter reports the contents of containers (I’m sure it won’t mind it won’t hurt to do this), which is not a problem, since information about the cargo being sent and the consignee is reflected in the accompanying documentation.
How so-called 'russia' will use this information, you can build different versions🤔

UPD Listen carefully, what says russian state deputy and general of russian army Gurulyev from 5:51 (other is no less interesting)

"Sailing has been stopped in Red sea. Don't we have our own Huties in Mozambique and in Namibia, who could shout it up completely? With their crazy boats and everything else. We should just make an effort. Perhabs we shouldn't say all of this here about what is on our mind. I know 100% they are listening to us very closely and carefully analizing it"

Look at the national emblem of Mozambique! What does this remind you of?🤨

Well, reader, was I wrong?

UPD https://www.wsj.com/world/russia-provided-targeting-data-for-houthi-assault-on-global-shipping-eabc2c2b:

"Russia provided targeting data for Yemen’s Houthi rebels as they attacked Western ships in the Red Sea with missiles and drones earlier this year, helping the Iranian-backed group assault a major artery for global trade and further destabilizing the region...
...For Russia, any flare up anywhere is good news, because it takes the world’s attention further away from Ukraine and the U.S. needs to commit resources—Patriot systems or artillery shells—and with the Middle East in play, it’s clear where the U.S. will choose"