Comment / A dark tale – the paradox of St Petersburg's port throughput

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PROLOGUE

In late February, Premium ran an article examining how Russia’s inbound container flows had been transformed in the two years since its invasion of Ukraine, with St Petersburg (SPB, as it is is known in shipping circles) supplanted by its Pacific ports of Vladivostok and Vostochny as the main gateway for its containerised imports over the course of 2022 and 2023.

The exact cause of the shift was undetermined, but was largely thought to be due to the fact that St ...