Rosatom's special Arctic envoy and Deputy Chairman of the State Commission on the Arctic Development Vladimir Panov said in an interview that by July 1 specialised government commissions and Arctic companies are going to develop an initial version of a comprehensive plan for the Arctic, that would be close to the national project in terms of contents and management system.

“The time frames set for the national projects are limited by the year 2030 now. However, development of the Arctic should have longer-term deadlines, possibly until 2050, because most of the Arctic projects are planned and implemented for decades,” Panov explained.

He said that the bases for the Arctic zone geopolitics and development strategy approved way back in 2020 are also being upgraded.

“Since then, the situation has notionally changed, the world has changed, everybody is living in a new reality now. We see that the United States unilaterally secures considerable portions of the sea shelf. European states restrict shipping and allow themselves actions more and more resembling modern piracy,” Vladimir Panov said.

According to him, all this is creating challenges to security and Russia’s interests in the Arctic. The key strategic planning documents will identify new approaches in the Arctic that would meet current realities.

The change in the Northern Sea Route concept has already become one of them. Last year, the Government supported transition from the federal project Development of the Northern Sea Route to the federal project Development of the Greater Northern Sea Route, which implies development of infrastructure for a maritime corridor from St Petersburg to Vladivostok.

“Today, the President set the task to develop the Transarctic Transport Corridor comprehensively. In terms of its geography, it is synonymous to the Greater Northern Sea Route, although its strategic ideology is different,” Panov added.

He said that the Northern Sea Route’s financial, economic and organizational model is being prepared. It is supposed to provide a balance between government and business investments.

At the first stage the planning horizon is 2030-2032. The second stage is to set the prospects until 2040. During that period, the concept of the caravan model of scheduled shipping will be formulated, taking into account the emergence of the eastern group of icebreakers. The financial/economic planning model of the Northern Sea Route is at a high readiness level. Rosatom is overseeing its development.

“The financial/economic model of the Transarctic Transport Corridor will be elaborated separately. Unlike the Northern Sea Route model, it will include the development of port, transshipment and shipping infrastructure outside the Northern Sea Route. Above all, these are the ports of Murmansk and Arkhangelsk, railways and motorways to them. There are also some points of growth in the Far East: in the Primorye Territory, Sakhalin and Kamchatka,” explained Vladimir Panov.