March 16, 2025: The Trans-Caspian International Transport Route, or TITR, is a seventy year old north-south transport route involving the landlocked Caspian Sea which has experienced a large increase in traffic as Russia suffered increasing economic sanctions over the last eleven years. At the same time, the Central Asian nations that also depend on this route have proposed using a network of road, canal and river connections to more nations to access this unique route. Russia was eager to cooperate as they were its primary builders and operators.

For example, in 2023 Russia brought in dredging equipment for a major dredging of the heavily used Volga-Don Canal that enables ships to get from the Caspian Sea to the Black Sea. Because of the war in Ukraine, and Iran supplying weapons and equipment to Russia, canal traffic was up 15 percent in 2022 over the previous year. In 2023 traffic increased by another 4.5 percent and traffic increased again in 2024 and 2025.

Since 1952, a 101 kilometers long canal, linking the Don and Volga rivers, gave the Caspian Sea access to the Black Sea and the world's oceans. However, ships that can use the canal cannot displace more than 5,000 tons and be no more than 140 meters long, 17 meters wide, and have a draft of no more than 3.5 meters. Normally the canal moves over 12 million tons of cargo a year. About half of that is oil or oil products. In 2021 Russia agreed to allow Iran to use the Volga-Don Canal so that Iranian ships can reach the Black Sea from the landlocked Caspian Sea. This is the first time Russia has ever given a foreign nation free access to the canal. Russia and Iran are now using each other’s Caspian Sea ports heavily for trade and getting Iranian weapons to Russia. Both nations have agreed to establish a joint-shipbuilding operation in the Caspian Sea and cooperate in dredging the canal, something that has not been done since 1991. The prolonged lack of dredging has made portions of the canal shallower and forced ships to carry less cargo.

The 13 locks on the canal connect the Volga River, the longest in Russia that empties into the Caspian, and the Don River which empties into the Sea of Azov, which is connected to the Black Sea via the Kerch Strait. The Caspian is the world's largest lake, at 371,000 square kilometers. It is about a thousand kilometers long and 430 kilometers wide. It's saline but is only about a third as salty as ocean water. The Caspian has a 7,000-kilometer-long coastline, with the largest chunk, 1,900 kilometers, belonging to Kazakhstan.

The Ukraine War imposed some unexpected limitations on the use of the TITR because the Ukrainians unexpectedly used air and naval drones to defeat the Russian Black Sea Fleet and threaten any Russian commercial traffic entering the Black Sea via the TITR. Any Russian commercial shipping entering the Black Sea is subject to seizure or destruction by the observant Ukrainians.