Given Russia’s lack of a developed highway system (see EDM, October 6, 2015) and its increasing difficulties with the use of rivers for transport (Ritmeurasia.org, October 22, 2019), Moscow not only relies more heavily on the country’s long-haul railway network but counts on it to allow Russia to play a key role in trade between China and Europe. However, because of Moscow’s failure to invest in the maintenance and development of that network, Beijing is increasingly skeptical that Russia can be such a land route. Consequently, China is looking to send its goods either by sea or by routes that bypass the Russian Federation entirely. So what might seem to be a domestic problem is rapidly becoming an international one for Moscow.
