Poland is to build a short canal so that ships leaving from one of its ports will no longer need to transit Russian waters.
Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the leader of the ruling Law and Justice, said this week the 1 km long canal cutting through the Vistula lagoon in the northeast of the country to the Baltic Sea will show Poland’s neighbours, the Russians, that “the days they dictated to us are over”.
Currently ships leaving the lagoon from the port of Elblag must pass through Russian waters to get to the open sea.
Russia has already complained to the European Commission about the canal, saying its construction threatens the ecology of the lagoon.
Construction of the 5 m deep canal will start later this year and should be completed by 2022.
This century has been inundated with many canal projects, some realised such as the widening of the Panama and Suez canals, and some not, such as in Nicaragua, Iran and the long-held plans for the Kra Canal across the Thai isthmus.
