Iran’s Caspian lifeline can feed the country but not fund it

Seven months into the war that began with US and Israeli strikes on 28 February, Iran’s trade has been pushed off its southern coast. The Maritime Executive judges the US naval blockade of the Gulf and Gulf of Oman ports to be almost completely effective. Those ports handled 80 per cent of Iran’s trade before the conflict. Air links have largely been cut since late September, the land borders are congested, and the United Arab Emirates, historically Iran’s second-largest trading partner, suspended all trade with it on 19 August, GIS Reports notes. What remains is the Caspian, the one maritime route the US Navy cannot reach. The sea is now doing more for Iran than at any time in decades. The evidence also shows how little it can do, and how much of it runs through Russia.

How much is moving north

Iran’s officials have published shares and growth rates rather than full volumes. Mohammad Shakibi-Nasab, head of the Ports and Maritime Organization, told state-linked media in August that the country’s nominal port capacity is 300 million tonnes a year, only 30 million of it in the north, Al Jazeera reports. The northern ports’ share of essential-goods imports has risen from 18 per cent before the war to 30 per cent. The governor of Gilan said container arrivals at Caspian ports rose 50 per cent year on year in the five Iranian months to 22 August. Iran’s shipping association says low water means the northern ports now take ships of 4,000 tonnes, against 6,000 tonnes previously.

Shipping data tell the same story from the Russian side. Lloyd’s List Intelligence counts 21 per cent more active Iranian- and Russian-flagged vessels on the Caspian in August than a year earlier, and a 36 per cent increase in general cargo capacity on the Russia–Iran corridor, while noting that low water, limited port capacity and river bottlenecks constrain the route. The Maritime Executive, examining AIS tracks, sees on average about eight vessels a day moving between Astrakhan and Makhachkala in Russia and Anzali and Amirabad in Iran. Food is the clearest cargo. Russia shipped 913,700 tonnes of grain to Iran between 1 July and 8 September, The Economy reports, citing the grain analyst ProZerno, including 498,100 tonnes of corn and 292,500 tonnes of barley.

Russian official figures are harder to read. Umud Shokri, writing for Iran International, notes that Russia’s transport ministry reported 1.8 million tonnes of freight on the trans-Caspian route in 2025 and 1.3 million tonnes in the first half of 2026, and separately maritime freight of 2.8 million tonnes in 2025 and about 4.5 million tonnes in the first seven months of 2026. The ministry does not say how much of this is Iranian trade, transit or third-country cargo, and the two series should not be added together.

Why the Caspian cannot replace the Gulf

Scale is the first limit. Because Astrakhan lies in the Volga delta, shallow-draft ships must be used, and about 20 Caspian vessels are needed to carry what one ocean-going ship could move through the southern ports, according to both the Maritime Executive and Iran’s port authority. A northern capacity of 30 million tonnes cannot absorb trade that used to move through a 300-million-tonne system.

Composition is the second. Ezana Tedla of the Bourse & Bazaar Foundation told Al Jazeera that Iran’s valuable exports are heavy bulk commodities, mineral fuels and iron ore, that go south, while its northern-bound exports are light goods such as processed food and packaging. Shokri points out that around 90 per cent of Iran’s crude exports normally pass through Kharg Island. The Caspian alternative for oil, swaps through the Neka terminal, peaked at about 110,000 barrels a day in 2006 and never resumed at scale. The northern route can bring grain and inputs in. It cannot carry out the oil that pays for them.

The price of dependence

The third limit is political. Almost all heavy cargo on the sea moves to and from Russia, and the route is entangled with the war in Ukraine. NBC News reported in August, as summarised by The Economy, that more than 20 Russian vessels had carried drone components, ammunition and explosives across the Caspian to Amirabad by July. Iranian and Russian officials have not commented on such reports. Ukraine struck vessels on the Caspian in July and, on 10 September, hit Makhachkala, Russia’s only ice-free deep-water port on the sea, which UNITED24 Media says handled 2.9 million tonnes in January–August, 42.5 per cent more than a year earlier.

Al Jazeera’s interviewees put the risk plainly: the shift north risks overreliance on Russia, itself sanctioned and at war, and integration with Russian infrastructure that Ukraine is targeting. Shokri frames the test as whether Iran’s access depends on a small number of suppliers, carriers and financiers. On current evidence it does.

Washington follows the cargo north

The United States cannot blockade the Caspian; the sea is enclosed, and the convention the littoral states signed in 2018 bars armed forces of outside states. Instead it is going after the businesses that make the route work. On 29 September the Treasury and State Department sanctioned 13 individuals and entities tied to Iranian weapons procurement, including MG-Flot LLC, whose vessels, Reuters reported, carry weapons for Russia’s Defence Ministry. On 1 October the Treasury designated the Islamic Republic of Iran Railway Company and Raja Passenger Trains, saying Tehran “has increasingly relied on rail to move oil and sustain trade amid the US maritime blockade”, and targeted the Russia-linked A7 network as a shadow banking channel for Iran. Rail also carries Iran’s eastern overland trade through Turkmenistan to Kazakhstan, Russia and China.

These measures will not stop Russian grain from reaching Anzali. They do raise the cost and risk for anyone outside Russia and Iran who touches the trade: Kazakh and Turkmen railways that handle Iranian freight, insurers, and the Azerbaijani and Kazakh operators whose ships cross the same waters on the east–west route.

What to watch

• Whether Iran publishes tonnage, not just shares, for its northern ports, which would show whether the 30-million-tonne ceiling is binding.
• Further US designations of Caspian shipping companies or of Central Asian rail and port operators that handle Iranian cargo.
• Ukrainian strikes on Astrakhan or Makhachkala, and any response from Russia or Iran on the water.
• Progress on the Rasht–Astara railway, which Moscow cites as the key project for the route and which would move more Iran–Russia trade onto Azerbaijan’s rail network.

The Caspian has given Iran a supply line it can rely on for food and some industrial goods, and it has given Russia a stronger hand in Tehran. It has not given Iran a way around the blockade for the trade that matters most to its budget. For the other littoral states, the main risk is that a growing Russia–Iran supply line brings more sanctions and more military targets onto the same waters as their own trade.

Sources

• Al Jazeera — Iran shifts trade north to Caspian Sea as war impairs Strait of Hormuz
• The Maritime Executive — The Caspian Sea is Busy Between Russia and Iran
• The Economy — Iran Turns to Russia via the Caspian to Bypass US Blockade, but Northern Ports Cannot Replace Southern Gateways
• Lloyd’s List — Conflict pushes Russia-Iran trade deeper into the Caspian
• Iran International — Can the Caspian give Iran a way around Hormuz?
• Iran International — US targets Iran auto, rail and metals sectors in new sanctions blitz
• The Kyiv Independent — US imposes sanctions against Russian companies tied to Iran weapons procurement
• UNITED24 Media — Ukraine Hits Key Russia-Iran Shipping Hub on Caspian Sea in First Makhachkala Port Strike
• GIS Reports — Multiple trade routes help Iran evade sanctions