The conflict between US-Israel and Iran impacting the Strait of Hormuz and the Houthi attacks in the Red Sea and the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait have brought India’s energy security into sharp focus.India is the world’s third-largest energy consumer and second-largest energy importer, importing around one-third of its total energy supply. It ranks as the world’s third-largest crude oil importer and the fourth-largest importer of liquefied natural gas (LNG). Oil imports stand at approximately 240-250 million tonnes annually, with an import dependency of nearly 85-90%. LNG imports are about 26-27 million tonnes, with roughly 50% dependency, while liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) imports are around 20-21 million tonnes, with approximately 60% dependency. This clearly establishes that India’s energy system is structurally dependent on maritime supply chains.This vulnerability is further exacerbated by India’s coastal imbalance. Approximately 65-70% of India’s oil imports, 75-80% of LNG imports, and 55-60% of LPG imports are handled on the west coast. This concentration is reinforced by infrastructure: nearly 60-65% of refining capacity and about 70-75% of LNG regasification capacity are located on the West coast. Regasification refers to the industrial process of warming LNG from its cryogenic storage temperature (-162°C) back into its standard gaseous state for distribution and consumption.As a result, India’s energy system is overwhelmingly dependent on the Arabian Sea and exposed to the Strait of Hormuz and the Bab-el-Mandeb chokepoints. The westward tilt also creates a serious national security vulnerability, as the Jamnagar and Vadinar refineries, which together represent a third of India’s total refining output, are within striking distance of swarm drone attacks from Pakistan.In recent years, Russia has emerged as a critical energy partner for India. Since 2023, Russian imports have accounted for roughly 30-40% of India’s total oil imports. In 2025, India imported approximately $45.38 billion of crude oil from Russia, averaging around 1.7 to 1.9 million barrels per day. This trend continued into 2026, with India’s oil imports from Russia peaking in mid-2026 at an estimated record share of about 50.8% of total imports (2.47 million barrels per day) in July 2026.This energy relationship, however, is also coast-asymmetric. India has diversified its suppliers but not its routes. Russian oil is largely shipped from its Baltic ports via the Suez Canal — which connects the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea through Egypt — to Western Indian ports. As a result, even diversified supplies remain exposed to maritime chokepoints and broader geopolitical disruptions.Also read | From calling for peace in Russia-Ukraine and beyond, Delhi is now working for itIt is in this broader context that India’s unique connectivity advantage with Russia becomes particularly significant. The Russians have subsumed the erstwhile Northern Sea Route, which ran from Murmansk to Provideniya, into the Trans-Arctic Transport Corridor (TATC) project, which spans from St Petersburg in the west to Vladivostok in the east. Along its route, the TATC aims to integrate major Russian ports, including Murmansk and Arkhangelsk, to create a unified transport system combining sea, rail, road and inland waterways, connect the key economic centres of Eurasia and form a seamless logistics corridor.Story continues below this adIndia is connected to both ends of the TATC. On the western side, it is linked via the International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC), and on the eastern side via the Chennai-Vladivostok Maritime Corridor, also known as the Eastern Maritime Corridor (EMC). The critical internal connector in this system is Russia’s Unified Deep-Water System, which integrates inland waterways, links European Russia to Arctic ports, and carries approximately 75% of Russia’s internal cargo.Relevance of Eastern Maritime CorridorThe EMC is particularly relevant given India’s energy import bias towards the west coast. Launched in 2019 by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, the EMC was accompanied by India’s announcement of its “Act Far East Policy” and a $1-billion credit to Russia. The EMC can reduce transit time to a Russian port by one-third via Chennai and Vladivostok, compared with the route between Mumbai and St Petersburg. Trade will take only 24 days to traverse the 10,470-km-long EMC at a speed of 10 knots, compared with 36 days required to cover the 16,070-km conventional route to St Petersburg through the Suez.This efficiency is increasingly vital amid persistent geopolitical disruptions and chokepoint vulnerabilities in the Red Sea and the Strait of Hormuz. In 2024, around 94 million tonnes of Russian exports, including 63 million tonnes of oil and petroleum products and 21 million tonnes of bulk cargo, were delivered to Indian ports via the Suez Canal. Even partial diversion of these flows through the EMC could significantly reduce exposure to chokepoints and enhance supply resilience.Through the EMC, India will gain direct access to the mineral-rich Russian Far East and the Arctic, one of the world’s last largely untouched resource repositories. These resources are becoming increasingly accessible for exploitation as ice melts due to climate change-induced global warming and other local factors. They include 13% of the world’s undiscovered conventional oil reserves and 30% of its undiscovered natural gas, as well as large deposits of coal; base metals such as nickel, copper, zinc, lead, iron ore, and tin; precious metals and stones, including gold, silver, platinum, palladium, and diamonds; and industrial minerals such as phosphate (for fertilisers), bauxite (for aluminium), and rare earth elements.Story continues below this adAlso read | Ship-to-ship transfers boost India’s West Asian oil imports, Russian flows see supply pressureRussia’s Arctic Zone is the country’s largest territory. At 4.9 million sq km, it is 1.5 times the size of India, yet has fewer than one-twelfth as many people as Delhi. The Russian Arctic is larger than the combined Arctic regions of the other seven Arctic countries. It accounts for 15% of Russia’s gross domestic product and 20% of its exports, and holds three-quarters of the country’s natural gas resources and more than one-fifth of its oil reserves. Given the Special and Privileged Strategic Partnership between India and Russia, a long-term partnership in energy and minerals through the EMC could strengthen India’s energy security and help address its rare earth and mineral shortfalls.Ocean freight through the EMC is also expected to be more than 50% cheaper compared with the Suez route, thanks to the shorter distance and the absence of canal transit charges. India’s major trading partners, China, Japan, and South Korea, also lie along the EMC, while more than half of India’s trade passes through the South China Sea. India and Russia have explicitly linked the EMC’s development to their ambitious goal of reaching 100 billion US dollars in annual trade by 2030.While the EMC holds transformative potential for bilateral trade, its commercial success hinges on one critical missing piece: a predictable, scheduled direct liner shipping service, where cargo vessels operate on fixed schedules, predefined routes, and regular stopovers at designated seaports. The corridor’s economic potential cannot be realised at scale without addressing its systemic constraints.The EMC was announced as operational in November 2024 by the Union Minister of Ports, Shipping and Waterways, and cargo is moving. Yet there is no direct, regular liner service connecting the major ports of India and the Russian Far East. India-Russia trade reached a record high of $68.7 billion in FY 2024-25 but remains highly asymmetric. Indian exports stood at merely $4.9 billion, dwarfed by Russian exports to India of about $63.8 billion. Challenges and possible solutionsStory continues below this adIn the absence of a direct scheduled service from Vladivostok to Chennai, container logistics often rely on inefficient transhipment via third-party Asian ports such as Ningbo or Shanghai. For instance, recent services organised by operators such as FESCO have recorded transit times of around 34 days due to these indirect routings. This lack of a direct schedule results in unpredictable transit times and volatile freight rates, making it impossible for exporters to commit to delivery schedules or accurately calculate logistics costs.Consequently, many businesses are forced to rely on slower yet more predictable western routes. Compounding these logistical hurdles are physical infrastructure gaps, such as a lack of specialised transhipment terminals in Vladivostok for key commodities, alongside ongoing banking sanctions that create friction in payment mechanisms.This creates a classic chicken-and-egg problem. Shipping companies are reluctant to launch a dedicated, high-frequency service until cargo volumes are large enough to make it profitable. At the same time, exporters hesitate to shift their supply chains to the corridor without a reliable, published sailing schedule. This dilemma is closely linked to the severe imbalance in trade flows: EMC’s current cargo profile consists almost entirely of Russian bulk commodities, including crude oil, coal, and fertilisers.Also in Explained | US’s Russia sanctions Bill: What 100% tariffs on Russian oil buyers can mean for IndiaTo be commercially viable, a scheduled container service must address the critical backhaul problem. EMC’s economic purpose must therefore evolve. Vladivostok must become not only a Russian export gateway to India but also a viable distribution hub for Indian goods, including pharmaceuticals, engineering goods, chemicals, and agricultural products, destined for the Russian Far East and the wider domestic market.Story continues below this adOvercoming these constraints requires shifting the focus from mere infrastructure announcements to practical, collaborative logistics solutions. To break the chicken-and-egg cycle and absorb the initial commercial risk, several policy and market measures can be deployed. Governments and port authorities could offer temporary subsidies, preferential port charges, and guaranteed berthing windows to incentivise early adoption. Minimum-volume commitments from major exporters and importers could provide the baseline assurance shipping lines need.Furthermore, joint service agreements between Russian and Indian shipping companies could distribute financial risk, while an anchor-cargo model could allow containerised freight to utilise the same maritime corridor established by bulk trade. Recent industry dialogues in 2026 emphasise that authorities and logistics partners must act immediately to organise reliable routes. Businesses need a clear understanding of the schedule now, not next year, to make the corridor competitive with established alternatives.Ultimately, the EMC should be seen not as a fully operational maritime route but as a logistics platform whose commercial potential is constrained by the lack of regular sailings. An occasional voyage is not the same as an economically viable corridor: an irregular vessel may carry a single cargo, but only a scheduled service can sustain trade flows.The EMC’s next stage should be judged not by whether ships can sail from Chennai to Vladivostok, but by whether exporters and importers can rely on a vessel departing every week or two. Establishing this reliable, direct liner service is essential to turning the EMC from a strategic aspiration into a genuine, sustainable driver of diversified bilateral trade between India and Russia.