Northern Sea Route: How Russia & China are forging ‘Polar Silk Road’

Since 2024, Russia has invited its Chinese partners to jointly develop the Northern Sea Route (NSR), focusing on logistics expansion and container shipments - extending China's Belt and Road Initiative into polar waters.

In 2023, China’s New New Shipping Line acquired a fleet of vessels for container transport along the Northern Sea Route, trained crews for Arctic navigation, and completed its first seven voyages, Russian media outlet Sputnik reported.

The following year, a Rosatom subsidiary and the Chinese shipping company signed a memorandum of intent to launch a year-round container shipping line between Russian and Chinese ports via the Northern Sea Route

The joint venture was tasked with designing and building high ice-class container vessels, as well as jointly operating an Arctic container shipping network

The first-stage target: to build five container ships for year-round Arctic sailings, each carrying 4,400 TEUs, and commission the first ARC7 class vessel in 2027.

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In 2025, Rosatom’s Director Alexey Likhachev and China’s Minister of Transport Liu Wei committed both sides to jointly develop and commercialise shipping along the NSR

In October 2025, a joint roadmap was approved aimed at reaching 20 million tonnes of annual Russia-China cargo traffic along the NSR by 2030

Chinese shipping companies made 17 container voyages along the Northern Sea Route (NSR) in 2025.

What makes NSR so alluring is geography

A large container vessel departing from China can complete the journey to Europe in around 20 days - nearly twice as fast as the traditional southern route through the Suez Canal.

Furthermore, the NSR shortens the Asia-Europe voyage by 30-40%, significantly reducing fuel consumption (Intermodal estimates).

To strengthen the safety of Arctic navigation, last year Russia and China signed a memorandum on training Chinese ship crews for operations in polar conditions.

Under the agreement, Chinese specialists will study at Admiral Nevelskoy Maritime State University and Admiral Makarov State University - a major transfer of Russian Arctic navigation expertise to China.

China’s interest in the NSR is accelerating “with every month,” according to Rosatom Director General Alexey Likhachev. Transit cargo volumes along the route hit a record 3.2 million tonnes in 2025, he noted, while total cargo shipments between Russia and China via the Arctic corridor reached 5.4 million tonnes.