The three Baltic countries floated the idea of ​​an 870-kilometer (540-mile) high-speed railway spanning Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania years ago.

Rail Baltica started as a major project but has now become a strategic imperative: since Russia’s large-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Baltic states increasingly see their neighbors as an existential threat.

There is currently no direct connection across the Baltic Sea to Poland.

Rail Baltica will do this, reducing travel time and providing economic and environmental benefits, but the costs of this ambitious plan are mounting.

Meanwhile, the Baltic countries and their NATO allies need to put the railway into service as soon as possible.

Estonian Infrastructure Minister Vladimir Svet said the railway connection was vital during Russia’s war in Ukraine.

“History is repeating itself,” he said. “Putin’s aggressive regime is trying to recreate an imperial project on the territory of the former Soviet bloc.”

The memory of decades of Soviet occupation is still fresh in the Baltics. Moscow deported hundreds of thousands of people from the region to Siberia.

Estonia and Latvia share land borders with Russia, while Lithuania borders the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad, which also borders Poland and Moscow’s close ally Belarus.

There are currently around 10,000 NATO troops in the Baltics, as well as local troops. In a worst-case scenario, their total number could reach 200,000.

“Rail Baltica will increase military mobility and allow trains to run directly from the Netherlands to Tallinn,” said Major Peter Nielsen of NATO’s Force Integration Unit.

According to Estonia’s infrastructure minister, rail is “an unbreakable link with European networks”.

Not far from Estonia’s capital, Tallinn, at the railway end, dozens of workers are welding and hammering at the new Ülemiste passenger terminal.

“This will be the northernmost point of the network, the starting point of 215 km of railway in Estonia and 870 km of railway in the three Baltic States,” Rail Baltica Estonia CEO Anvar Salomets said as he carefully walked over the embryonic platforms.

The Baltic countries have until now been using Russian rail width because their rail systems date back to the Soviet period.

When passengers reach the Polish border, they have to change trains to the European system.

The new network will utilize the width of the European rail line and connect seamlessly to railways across the EU.

“Trains will run at speeds of up to 250 km/h (155 mph), compared to 80 or 120 km/h (50 or 74 mph) currently,” Salomets added.

This means the journey time from Tallinn to Lithuania’s capital Vilnius will be greatly reduced, from at least 12 hours to under four hours.

“This will be a game changer by reducing environmental impact across our entire transport sector,” says Salomets, who foresees huge economic benefits.

The latest analysis for the Rail Baltica consortium estimates the overall economic increase at €6.6bn (£5.5bn).

“The vast majority of studies on existing high-speed rail systems show a positive economic impact,” said Adam Cohen of the University of California at Berkeley.

But these benefits will not occur overnight, and concerns are growing about spiraling costs. Developers’ estimates have quadrupled since 2017 and now stand at €24 billion.

The EU has subsidized 85% of the project so far and has just announced a further €1.1 billion.

Estonia and Latvia have also come under criticism for focusing on building rail terminals before building the main line.

French engineer Emilien Dang, whose RB Rail supervised the project, blamed the recent global crises for the huge increase in costs: “Our initial estimate did not take into account the Covid epidemic and high inflation, and the situation in Ukraine significantly increased the cost of the material.”

He also touched upon cultural issues while passing through a new and large terminal in Riga, the capital of Latvia.

“France’s view is incorrectly that the Baltic states are a single unit. But these are three countries with different regulations.”

The Baltic states decided to divide the project into two phases. The first, which will cost 15 billion euros, will lay a single line instead of double track by 2030 and will focus on the most important train stops.

The second line and additional train stations will be completed as part of the second phase, which does not yet have a firm completion date.

Increasing costs caused states to reduce some of their targets.

“We can further reduce the scope of the first phase, for example, by connecting Riga airport at a later stage,” said Andris Kulbergs, who chairs the Latvian parliamentary committee investigating the project.

This may be necessary as billions of euros for the first phase have not yet been secured.

Estonia’s national auditor Janar Holm believes there will likely be a few more years of delay: “We have to find the money to build this railway now, otherwise it will be even more expensive.”

The country’s infrastructure minister, Vladimir Svet, insisted that “we are reducing the budget as much as possible, we have rationalized the public procurement process and, if necessary, we will take loans.”

“If we want to protect our culture and feel secure about our freedom, there is no other way than to be within a strong EU, NATO and international community that supports international law,” he added.

Rail Baltica could serve as a lifeline for the three Baltic countries that left the Soviet Union and joined the EU and NATO; That is, if he manages to stay on track.