The authorities will spend 95 billion rubles to modernize checkpoints across the state border until 2026 to increase throughput. Transport Minister Vitaly Savelyev told reporters about the allocation of the corresponding amount, writes RBC. Funds for modernization are allocated within the framework of the state program "Development of the transport system".
Savelyev noted last year that the international sanctions that were imposed on Russia “virtually broke all the logistics in the country,” after which Russian President Vladimir Putin pointed out the need to speed up the construction of new and modernize existing border checkpoints.
According to the Ministry of Transport, 109 out of 133 automobile checkpoints across the state border are currently operating in Russia. Most checkpoints are located on the border with Kazakhstan (52; 50 are open) and China (28; 19 are open). A representative of the Ministry of Economic Development said in an interview with RBC that the modernization of checkpoints is of strategic importance for accelerating the transit, export and import of goods, taking into account the reorientation of Russia's foreign trade to new markets and the development of international transport corridors, including North-South.
In 2023, the authorities are going to spend 25 billion rubles on the modernization of checkpoints across the state border of Russia, in 2024-2025 – 35 billion rubles annually. With this money, unified buildings will be built at checkpoints, new equipment will be introduced, as well as an electronic queue. Savelyev said that the new principle of transport scanning and the electronic queue "will significantly change the landscape of the Russian border." Before the sanctions actually forced the Russian Federation to begin modernization, 9-10 billion rubles a year were allocated for the maintenance of checkpoints, along with construction and major repairs.
Russia faces new sanctions after a full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022. Critics of Western sanctions against the Russian Federation argue that they are not able to stop the war and change the Putin regime, while they refer to the examples of states living under sanctions for decades. However, an analysis of the cases of Venezuela, North Korea, Cuba, Iran and China shows that the secret of the survival of their regimes is the help of more developed and wealthy partners and investors. Who could become such an investor for Russia is unclear, since the war quarreled between the Kremlin and developed countries, and China is in no hurry to become a donor for Russia: it is more profitable for it to arrange production in the poorer countries of Southeast Asia. Read more in The Insider .