The White Sea-Baltic Canal: A Strategic Asset in Need of Modernization

April 6, 2026

This article presents an analysis of potential upgrades to the White Sea-Baltic Canal, originally published by Maksim Dankin, General Director of the PORA Expert Center, in Vedomosti newspaper on April 1, 2026. With the consent of the editorial team, we are reprinting this analysis piece for our readership.

In February 1931, the USSR Council of Labor and Defense initiated the design of the White Sea-Baltic Canal (WSBC). Peter the Great’s vision was realized: the country gained a waterway that shortened the route from the Baltic to the White Sea by 4,000 km. Today, the canal is going through tough times: cargo flows have fallen, lock dimensions (14.3 m wide, 4 m deep) do not allow modern vessels to pass, and the fleet designed for the old parameters is outdated. But in an era of Baltic militarization and accelerated Arctic development, the record-breaking canal (34 km longer than the Suez!) is acquiring new strategic significance.

The 227 km waterway from Povenets on Lake Onega to Belomorsk was built in less than two years, from September 1931 to August 1933. The construction, carried out by prisoners of the GULAG’s Belbaltlag, employed 250,000–280,000 people. 19 locks, 13 dams, 47 dikes, and 34 artificial canals were built. During the very first navigation season, the White Sea Canal transported over 1 million tons of cargo and about 27,000 passengers.

After the war, the canal was modernized: it was electrified, wooden structures replaced with concrete, and the bottom deepened. The peak of cargo transportation – 7–9 million tons per year – occurred in the mid-1980s. With the collapse of the USSR and the breakup of river shipping companies, volumes plummeted and have since remained at around 200,000 tons per year. In 2023, the WSBC handled 176,000 tons; in 2024, 234,000 tons; and based on the results of the 2025 navigation season, Rosmorrechflot reported 206,000 tons. Passenger traffic is even lower than in the first years after the WSBC’s opening: just over 3,000 people per navigation season, mainly cruises to the Solovetsky Islands. Meanwhile, the total volume of transportation in the White Sea-Onega basin in 2025 exceeded 7 million tons. The canal has become a «bottleneck» and needs a restart.

As part of the federal project «Inland Waterways,» a comprehensive reconstruction of the WSBC’s hydraulic structures is underway. In February 2026, Transport Minister Andrey Nikitin announced that the work was entering its final stage. However, the lock dimensions remain the same. River-sea vessels over 16 m wide still cannot pass. Deadweight is limited to 3,000 tons – the level of the mid-20th century.

Meanwhile, formerly neutral Sweden and Finland joined NATO, the Arctic is being militarized, and projects for the complete closure of the Baltic to Russian shipping are being discussed in Europe. Creating a reliable water route from the Baltic to the Arctic is becoming a strategic priority.

Russia must avoid a blockade of its fleet in the Baltic Sea. A modernized WSBC will allow to operate jointly, and this synergy will multiply the country’s military power in the northwestern direction.

The restart of the WSBC will also allow the development of shipbuilding capacities in St. Petersburg, where, among other things, Arctic nuclear icebreakers of Project 22220 are being built. Transferring them to the Arctic through unfriendly waters may become impossible, necessitating a through route via our own territory. An additional dimension to the WSBC’s prospects is provided by the development of the Kem’-Belomorsk agglomeration. A comprehensive development plan for these Arctic support settlements until 2035 was approved by the government in October 2025.

The professional community is discussing three main options for upgrading the WSBC. The first is increasing chamber width to 18 m and depth to 5 m without constructing new channels. This would allow accepting vessels with a deadweight of 8,000–9,000 tons. This option is technically risky: work on existing structures would inevitably paralyze navigation for long periods, and the limit on throughput capacity would still remain constrained. The second option is constructing duplicate branches at the five narrowest sections. This would speed up passage time but not solve the dimensional problem.

The third scenario appears the most promising, although the most expensive: creating a duplicate canal with chamber width of at least 21–22 m and increased depth. This would allow modern vessels to pass, significantly extend the navigation season, and, with icebreaking support, approach year-round operation. The old canal would continue to serve small-tonnage and tourist fleets.

The project’s cost is estimated at 60–100 billion rubles. Global practice shows that large infrastructure projects can be successfully implemented on a mixed basis, using non-state investment mechanisms and forms of public-private partnership. For example, the expansion of the Panama Canal ($5.25 billion) was financed through the canal authority’s own funds and loans from five international development institutions. For the Suez modernization, Egypt raised $8.5 billion in just eight days exclusively on the domestic financial market through the issuance of investment certificates. In Europe, private capital also actively participates in the development of port and terminal infrastructure on inland waterways.

Cargo flow via the renovated WSBC could grow to 5–7 million tons per year. This is comparable to peak Soviet-era figures, but the cargo structure will be different: containers, construction materials, timber processing products, and, prospectively, transit container shipments between Asia and Europe via the Northern Sea Route with transshipment at Baltic ports.

The environmental aspect is also important. But experience from large-scale Arctic projects shows that minimizing environmental damage is possible if strict requirements are observed.

The White Sea Canal is at a crossroads. We could limit ourselves to repairs, leaving it as a monument to the last century – but then we risk losing a critically important logistics link at a time when maximum flexibility and route reliability are needed. Or we could bet on a restart – with new dimensions, mixed financing, and environmental standards. Then the WSBC would become the infrastructural backbone of the Russian North, providing the country with a strategic advantage for decades to come.