After the sanctions were imposed, Russian carriers faced great challenges, and as the past year has shown, they adequately overcame the difficulties that arose. Russia's trade turnover with China increased by 28% in 2022, with Turkey – by 84%, with the third largest trading partner in 2021 (the Netherlands) decreased by 0.1%.
Despite the fact that the road to Europe is blocked by road, ship and air transport, and the largest sea carriers Maersk, DHL do not serve Russian cargo. Logistics companies have rebuilt supply chains, mastered new international routes and shifted their emphasis from west to east.
The vast majority of cargo from Europe was transported to Russia by road until 2022. The response to Western sanctions was the decision of the Russian Federation and the Republic of Belarus to ban the passage of European road carriers on their territory. Cargo carriers from EU countries deliver goods to the border, followed by the transfer of the truck to a Russian or Belarusian tractor, or the reloading of goods, often with storage at the temporary storage warehouse. The first method of delivery is much faster, the second leads to a delay in the cargo on the way and a significant increase in costs. Nevertheless, deliveries are underway, although the average cost of transportation has increased significantly.
There are European companies that collect and complete bulk cargoes throughout Europe, and then send them by container trains, motor transport and even air transport (via Turkey, Serbia, the UAE, which have not closed the skies for Russian aircraft).
In the current conditions, the role of a transport hub is played by Turkey, through which a large flow of goods from Europe arrives. The volume of traffic from Turkey to Russia has increased by more than 5 times. This creates a high load on all transport chains connecting it with the Russian Federation – motor transport, railway, sea transport. Sea vessels with goods freely enter the ports of Turkey, then the cargo is delivered by feeder vessels to the ports of Novorossiysk and the Sea of Azov.
Three Ro-Ro ferries run in the direction, which deliver cargo one-third faster than sea vessels. Their total capacity is 15 road trains. From Turkey, goods are also actively transported by road through the countries of the Caucasus region: Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia (a new direction, it did not work before), and are also delivered to Russia via the Caspian Sea. The problem lies in their low capacity, however, in the plans for the reconstruction of automobile border crossings with Georgia and Azerbaijan.
In the new conditions, multimodal cargo deliveries using several modes of transport are actively developing. They have become widespread in the directions of Southeast Asia, China — Russia, Europe. Due to the actual blocking of our ports in the northwest (St. Petersburg and Ust-Luga), export and import cargo flows have actively moved to the Far East. The load on the ports of Vladivostok and Nakhodka has sharply increased. Thus, according to the press service of the Vladivostok Commercial Sea Port, over the three summer months, cargo turnover increased 1.5 times. After the departure of international maritime companies, Russian companies became the main cargo carriers in the Far East. In addition, Chinese companies are actively filling the vacant niche. From Vladivostok, cargo is sent by rail to Moscow and St. Petersburg. As a result, the load on the Trans-Siberian Railway has increased, and its infrastructure capabilities are limited, especially since a lot of cargo from China to Russia and Europe goes directly, including as part of accelerated container trains. Slowly but surely: the North-South International Transport Corridor "North-South" has been under construction since 1999, but it has become particularly relevant right now. It connects India, Iran and Russia. According to the results of 2022, India became one of Russia's main trading partners. The main investments are invested in the construction of this transit route by Russia and Iran (about 70% mainly of state funds).
Previously, the International Transport Corridor North-South was not very popular with carriers, since the route is complicated, there are many connecting points, while there are critical places in the infrastructure, clear coordination in the field of vehicles, customs procedures, cargo insurance has not yet been established. However, in the conditions of the "new" logistics, the North-South route has acquired great importance and has begun to develop very actively. Compared with sea cargo transportation through the Suez Canal, the land corridor allows you to shorten the way by more than 2 times and reduce the cost of logistics costs.
