The Caspian no longer represents a secondary route: it is becoming one of the silent pillars of the Eurasian response to U.S. hegemony. Join us on Telegram , Twitter , and VK . Contact us: info@strategic-culture.su Strategic re-orientation For years, military pressure against Iran has been conceived primarily from the south. U.S. bases surround the Persian Gulf, while Israel conducts intelligence operations from Azerbaijan and other nearby areas. American naval superiority has long transformed the straits surrounding Iran into a consolidated instrument of strategic pressure, capable of influencing not only trade flows but also the perception of vulnerability within Iran’s defensive apparatus.
The more the U.S.-Israel axis concentrates its attention on the Gulf, the more Iran’s strategic depth shifts northward, beyond the Caspian Sea — a closed space that Western powers cannot easily control. This dynamic is not accidental: it reflects a deliberate choice of geopolitical diversification pursued by Tehran over the last decade, accelerated by intensifying sanctions and military pressure.
Today, the Caspian has assumed decisive importance because it offers Iran and Russia something both urgently need: a direct and politically secure route, outside land corridors subject to Western influence. Overland routes pass through countries aligned with Washington or reluctant to challenge secondary U.S. sanctions. The Caspian, by contrast, directly connects Moscow and Tehran without intermediaries, guaranteeing both capitals a strategic line of communication that is difficult to intercept or neutralize without resorting to large-scale military escalation.
Even if ships could theoretically be targeted by drones or missiles, doing so would require much deeper operations inside Iranian territory and would risk direct confrontation with Russia. In the short term, the Caspian therefore provides Iran with a relatively secure supply line. In the long term, it could further strengthen integration between the two countries and become a fundamental route toward Western Asia, India, and other international markets currently beyond the reach of U.S. sanctions.
Determining whether the Caspian is a sea or a lake is not merely a terminological question. If considered a sea, it would fall under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), which grants each state 12 nautical miles of territorial waters while leaving the remainder open to international navigation. If classified as a lake, however, boundaries would have to be negotiated directly among the littoral states, without any involvement of third parties. This distinction has profound implications both commercially and militarily.
Until 1991, only Iran and the Soviet Union bordered the Caspian. The 1921 Russo-Persian Treaty prohibited navigation by other countries. With the collapse of the USSR, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan emerged and challenged that agreement, demanding new negotiations inspired by UNCLOS principles. The former Soviet republics, including Russia, wanted the Caspian treated as a sea. Iran, by contrast, preferred to regard it as a lake, since its relatively short coastline would otherwise grant it a smaller territorial share. Moreover, applying UNCLOS could have allowed foreign fleets to operate near Iranian waters — a particularly sensitive prospect given Azerbaijan’s close relations with Israel.
The absence of an agreement left the Caspian’s legal status ambiguous for years, obstructing strategic regional integration projects such as the Trans-Caspian gas pipeline between Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan. The breakthrough came in 2018, when the five littoral states signed the Convention on the Legal Status of the Caspian Sea: the basin was defined as a unique category, neither sea nor lake. The agreement granted each country 15 nautical miles of territorial waters plus an additional 10 miles dedicated to fishing, with the remaining areas shared among the signatory states. Unlike UNCLOS, the treaty prohibited the presence of military forces from outside countries, allowing Tehran to achieve what it considered its top priority: preventing foreign navies from entering the basin. The geoeconomic value that cannot be ignored Before the start of Russia’s operation in Ukraine in February 2022, trade relations between Moscow and Tehran, while politically significant, were structurally constrained by a series of common limitations: both countries were exposed to Western sanctions regimes, but Russia still maintained several channels with European markets that made it cautious about excessive proximity to Iran. Bilateral trade volume stood at around $4 billion annually — modest compared to the potential of the two economies.
In 2013, Moscow promoted the International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC), a network of railways, roads, and energy infrastructure designed to connect Russia to Iran through Azerbaijan and then onward to India and Asia. However, until 2022, the corridor remained largely a project on paper: land routes were still accessible, economic incentives for its development were not yet urgent enough, and Azerbaijan — a key state for overland transit — maintained delicate balances between Moscow and the West.
February 24, 2022 marked a structural rupture in this framework. Western sanctions against Russia — the harshest ever imposed on a major economy — made the search for alternative markets and partners urgent for Moscow. Iran, already accustomed to operating under international isolation, became the natural partner. For its part, Tehran understood that convergence with Moscow was no longer merely a political choice but an economic necessity: Russia offered technology, grain, industrial raw materials, and above all an alternative market for Iranian energy exports.
Thus, 2022 marked the birth of a structured geoeconomic partnership, with the Caspian as its central axis. The Iranian port of Noshahr received the first Russian cargo ship in more than twenty years and, during the same period, Russian and Iranian shipping companies created a new joint venture to develop the INSTC. In 2025, commercial traffic at the port of Anzali, the main Caspian hub, increased by 56% compared to the previous year — an unprecedented rise in the recent history of the two countries and evidence of the speed with which this new geography of trade is consolidating. Hormuz and the New Red Line The closure of the Strait of Hormuz — or even its credible threat — represents one of the most feared scenarios for the Russia-Iran axis as well.
With the military escalation between the United States, Israel, and Iran and the subsequent blockade imposed by Washington in the Persian Gulf, Tehran found itself compelled to rapidly and massively redirect its trade and supply flows. Land routes through Azerbaijan, Pakistan, and Turkey became riskier, not only for logistical reasons but because of increasing political pressure exerted by the United States on those governments to avoid facilitating exchanges with Tehran in violation of secondary sanctions. The Caspian emerged as the only realistically viable alternative.
From a geoeconomic perspective, the closure of Hormuz generated a series of structural effects extending far beyond the immediate conflict zone. First, it forced Iran to monetize its northern geographic position by enhancing ports such as Anzali, Noshahr, and Amirabad as alternative import-export hubs. Second, it made Russia the principal supplier of essential goods for the Iranian market: according to some estimates, Russian exports to Iran in the food sector doubled in the first half of 2025 alone, particularly regarding grain and related products, a sector in which Moscow holds a dominant position on world markets.
Third, the closure of Hormuz redefined the strategic value of the INSTC corridor. What until 2021 had been a regional integration project of mainly symbolic significance was transformed into critically important infrastructure capable of determining the outcome of Iran’s economic resilience under embargo. Moscow therefore acquired unprecedented leverage over Tehran: not only as a military supplier, but also as guarantor of civilian supplies and as a commercial partner of last resort. This asymmetry in mutual dependence constitutes one of the most significant elements of the Caspian’s new geoeconomic architecture.
With military escalation and the closure of the Gulf, northern routes also became objects of military attention. According to The New York Times, Moscow reportedly transferred drone components across the Caspian, replenishing Iran’s arsenal at a moment of extreme pressure. These drones proved essential both in the Ukrainian conflict and in Iranian operations against American military bases in Western Asia. Russian ships reportedly also transported essential goods, including food products, to mitigate the effects of the economic blockade on Iran.
The Israeli attack on Bandar Anzali in March 2026 represented a qualitative leap in the conflict. The port is Iran’s main commercial and logistical hub on the Caspian, closely connected to Russian routes and INSTC infrastructure. Striking it meant not only degrading Tehran’s operational capabilities but also sending a direct signal to Moscow: the war would no longer stop at Gulf waters. The message was received on both shores of the Caspian.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova declared that the attack had struck “the economic interests of Russia and other regional countries,” warning that such actions risked dragging Caspian states into the conflict. The Kremlin expressed deep concern, while Tehran attempted to turn the episode into a matter of regional security, urging all littoral states to adopt a common position against destabilization of the basin. The message was clear: once Iran’s northern coast had been reached, the war directly affected the interests of all states dependent on Caspian stability.
This development effectively introduced a new red line into the conflict: the Caspian can no longer be treated as a neutral or rear-area space. Its de facto militarization, although still incomplete, has transformed regional geopolitics. Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan, which share the basin with Russia and Iran, now find themselves in an increasingly uncomfortable position: they depend on Caspian commercial infrastructure and cannot afford to be dragged into direct confrontation with Western powers, yet at the same time they cannot ignore pressure from Moscow and Tehran to align with the cause of regional security. Long-term prospects Even after the end of armed conflict, the Caspian will continue to be strategic for both Iran and Russia. For years, Moscow viewed the INSTC as a means of reaching the Indian Ocean while bypassing Europe. Today, amid Western sanctions and growing geopolitical competition, that project has assumed a significance far beyond initial expectations. If sanctions were to ease in the future and India reduce its dependence on the West, this corridor could become one of the foundational infrastructures of a multipolar trading order.
From an energy perspective, the Caspian offers further opportunities. The basin itself is rich in hydrocarbons: offshore reserves in Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan have already attracted significant international investment. An integrated energy infrastructure system connecting Caspian resources to the Indian market through Iran would transform the region into a major energy hub. Moscow could serve as the political and financial guarantor of such a system, consolidating its influence in an area where Western presence is structurally limited by the 2018 Convention.
Russia would gain more direct access to the Indian Ocean, while Iran would assume a central role in Eurasian trade, reducing the ability of the United States to economically isolate both countries through maritime and financial control. This vision is not merely speculative: infrastructure already completed or under development along the INSTC — including the Iran-Russia railway using the rail ferry across the Caspian between the ports of Astrakhan and Anzali — demonstrates that there is concrete political will and operational capability to turn this vision into reality.
For years, the Caspian remained underestimated, especially while land routes seemed sufficient and its legal status remained undefined. But with the progressive rapprochement between Moscow and Tehran in an increasingly hostile international environment, the Caspian no longer represents a secondary route: it is becoming one of the silent pillars of the Eurasian response to U.S. hegemony. Its geoeconomic relevance, amplified by the closure of Hormuz and the crystallization of new military red lines, could permanently redefine the maps of international trade and power projection in the 21st century far more than we currently imagine.