Northern Sea Route becomes key to russia’s mineral strategy, influencing U.S. negotiations – business analysts

The Northern Sea Route, long touted as a shortcut for russian exports, now represents a potential 20-30% reduction in shipping costs. In 2025, following a direct order from President vladimir putin, russia restored the Maritime Board, which now reports directly to the Kremlin. Its chairman, nikolai patrushev, is expected to oversee control of the route, analysts say.

This assessment comes from Olha Ivaniuk, PhD in Economics, who spoke at the Media Center Ukraine.

“The crucial factor for this route is the ports,” Ivaniuk explained. “Two major ports, Vladivostok and Kaliningrad, have been nationalized and transferred to Rosatom. These ports handle russia’s rare earth metals. The Northern Sea Route passes directly by the country’s largest deposits of these minerals, which are already under Rosatom’s control.”

Ivaniuk noted that russia has a strategic program to use the Northern Sea Route to access and exploit its full range of domestic mineral resources.

Vadym Denysenko, head of the Business Capital think tank, highlighted the broader geopolitical and economic dimensions of the route, particularly in the context of russia-U.S.-China relations. He suggested that Ukraine may be underestimating the economic stakes in ongoing trilateral discussions.

“In preliminary talks, russia reportedly offered the U.S. two potential avenues,” Denysenko said. “The first involved U.S. participation in selling sanctioned russian goods, including oil and gas, in the European market in exchange for eased sanctions. But the EU opposed this, so the proposal appears to have been dropped. The second possibility is U.S. involvement in developing russia’s rare earth metals sector.”

Denysenko called the second scenario “highly unrealistic,” but noted its strategic importance: China currently supplies 80% of the world’s rare earth metals, a dependency that concerns Washington, which is actively seeking alternative sources.

“When we analyze putin’s game, he seems to be positioning himself as a mediator between the U.S. and China,” Denysenko added. “At this stage, he’s buying time rather than offering solutions. russia’s own technologies are outdated, limiting its ability to develop these metals independently. The Kremlin is essentially defining how it can leverage this asset and sell the option to others.”

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