Against the prevailing narrative of the The Belt and Road as a top-down strategy to spread China’s geopolitical influence, there is the BRI’s impact through its first decade as emanating «from the middle out and bottom up» via transport-enabled corridors traversing a large number of regions within and across national territories.

In 2022, Russian Railways was forced to respond promptly to the changes. During the year, loading in the direction of unfriendly countries fell by 37%, in the direction of friendly countries — increased by 23%, including by 28% — to China. This increased the demand for the Eastern Polygon.