No offence but lots of these articles on newspapers and I say this with regret are written by immature men with staggering lack of insight or maybe they do it just to feed the ignorant Pakistani public similar to tabliods do in UK.
Let's get a few facts correct. Major portion of Russian population lives in European Russia. I have drawn two lines on map below. Red is the Iran route and green the Pakistan route. Look which one makes more sense? The green is nightmare, it has to go through so many Stans and then it has to go through the country our members at PDF love like no other, Afghanistan. Imagine the complications and political poblems in sustaining this route and in addition it is actually longer.
Then compare the red or Iranian route. Russia already has very good relations with that country and indeed is allied with Iran in the civil war in Syria whereas our position is ambivalent. Overlooking that Iran route is shortest and if needed can be effected without even depending on any other country - along the doted red lines thus this route would be politically robust. Therefore beyond grandstanding nobody can make a serious case for Russian need for Gwadar. I think the map below makes it crystal clear.
And finally do not underestimate Black Sea. No country would dare block it off from Russia. The only possibility would be if NATO was involved in which case we would be heading for a nuclear showdown as Russia would not allow those routes ( along with the Baltic - St Petersburgh) to be blocked therefore this block scenario is not applicable.
You have to understand what I was saying in my original posting, only selective quotation wont make sense.
First understand what CPEC is. Its a trade "corridor". Just like you got corridors in vastness of high seas and oceans where lonely ships carry goods far away from the human population, think of it the same way or route to transport goods for trade, overland. Where the population resides, does not matter a bit. Answer this, did Chinese cared about this fact that majority of industry and population lies on their eastern part of country far away from KKH? YET, its them who proposed to Pakistan the concept of CPEC years ago. Did WE in Pakistan cared about that Gawadar was basically a fishermen town , desolate and cut off from any civilization from rest of Pakistan?
Now put yourself in a Russian strategist shoes and think what is happening around your country. First the west headed by yanks did a "regime change" in Ukraine and Russia responded by annexing Crimea, the upper basin of black sea, because if they didnt act at that time, they could have kissed goodbye to their direct access to black sea. failing to restrict Russia through upper basin, they tried to create crisis in lower basin, between Turkey and Russia by downing Russian jet by a Gulenist pilot which when failed to achieve the desired results, they tried direct "regime change" through western puppets, the Gulenists. Your assumption that no one should dare block Russia is naive, they are not only daring, but actually working on their planes to cage Russia in. Russia do need to explore other alternative routes to its access to outside world. It is in Russia own interest, not Pakistan.
Now I have done the modification to your map and I want to go back to my original post where I talked about direct link between Russia, down to China, and Pakistan, bypassing all the "stans" of central Asia including Afghansitan. The route 3.
The route 1 , also got the "stans" of central Asia, and other states in between who can flip flop at the whims of uncle sam and put spanner in the works. Caspian Sea route would be idiotic to even think about.
I have already discarded route 2.
Now coming to route 3. China and Russia already got solid links between them. CPEC is more or less complete now. You already have full connectivity from Gawadar all the way to Russia. However, most important thing here is that between Russia, China and Pakistan, you are talking about world first, third and perhaps fourth biggest nukes powers, with "odd" America sitting at number 2 position. This "trioka" is such a formidable block , if and when connected via CPEC, those who dare to derail or sabotage this connectivity , will pay price that they cannot afford. Your route 1 and 2 can easily be manipulated by external forces through the tin pot states of central Asia including Iran itself. With all due respect, Iran is a paper tiger.
Looking long term, the route which can survive the changes on geopolitics is the route 3 only.
