Rethinking the Potential of the International Transport Corridor “North-South” in Sustaining Russia’s Foreign Trade

The paper aims to critically assess the potential and key problems of the international transport corridor “North-South” (INSTC) given significant changes in global supply chains due to the sanctions of Western countries recently imposed on the Russian Federation. Today, the artery is not fully loaded with mainly bulk cargoes in the front. In its turn, this corridor might sustain the trade flows between Russia (and the Eurasian Economic Union at large) under the FTA framework: an interim EAEU-Iran agreement is already in force, and an EAEU-India agreement is on the agenda. This route has substantial potential given the redirection of trade flows from and to Russia, evident from early 2022. However, this process is subject to several economic and political concessions. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023.