US sanctions target new Murmansk seaport
The port of Lavna is built to help Russian companies re-orient trade and circumnavigate international sanctions. Now the grand infrastructure object in the Kola Bay is itself put on the sanction list.
"The deep sea port of Lavna is one of the key projects for reorientation of Russia's foreign trade," Igor Shuvalyev, head of state development company VEB, said in 2023.
"Lavna will be important for shipments of export goods on the Northern Sea Route," the former deputy prime minister underlined.
Together with several banks, the VEB decided to invest almost 80 billion rubles (€759 million) in the infrastructure project. The state company would provide 12,9 billion rubles (€114 million) of the sum, Shuvalyev explained.
In July 2023, Vladimir Putin himself came to have a look at developments. Together with regional governor Andrei Chibis, the Russian dictator flew low with helicopter over the Lavna area. "Everything necessary must be done to complete the Murmansk Transport Hub project as soon as possible," Putin underlined .
According to developers, the new seaport in the Kola Bay was to be ready for full-scale operations by late 2024 and already in 2025 be able to handle up to 18 million tons of coal shipments.
However, even before the official opening of the new major infrastructure object, the Americans might have hampered the grand plans.
The Lavna port is one of the many companies that is included in the major new sanctions package announced by the US Treasury on 10 January.
The inclusion in the list is likely to significantly trouble the development of the project. Possibly, Lavna could end up as a stalled ghost project similar to the nearby Belokamenka LNG Construction Center, where energy company Novatek now is turning off the lights.
Regional authorities have over the past two decades actively lobbied the project. In 2022, it got a boost after the Kremlin officially named it a "strategically important project for Russia."
In a government meeting, Putin instructed construction works to commence. In the same meeting then Secretary of the Security Council, Nikolai Patrushev, told Putin that the inclusion of Sweden and NATO is turning the Baltic Sea into an inland sea for alliance and that shipment of goods via Murmansk is now one of the main transport routes for Russia.
Patrushev argued that the importance of Murmansk now will be just as it was “in the years of the Great Patriotic War” (Second World War).
But despite the backing from the Kremlin and the major investments, developments at Lavna have proceeded slower than planned.
According to regional newsmaker Arktichesky Obozrevatel, both the seaport and the connecting railway were by late 2024 far from ready for full-scale operations. All of 2025, and possibly even more, will be needed to finalise the construction project, the newsmaker argues on Telegram.
