Nikitin reports driverless truck routes reaching Chelyabinsk

Driverless trucks are operating on Russia’s M-12 Vostok route and reaching Chelyabinsk, Transport Minister Andrey Nikitin told Vladimir Putin on Oct. 13. He also described a completed cross-border trip to Astana.

At the Kremlin meeting, Nikitin said the vehicles were operating beyond the Moscow–St. Petersburg corridor. He put the distance to Chelyabinsk at almost 2,000 kilometres.

In the published exchange, the minister described a route from St. Petersburg through Moscow and the Central Ring Road towards Chelyabinsk.

He presented the Astana journey as a trip already made: the truck crossed the border and continued on roads in Kazakhstan. That statement does not establish the launch of a regular international freight service.

Putin welcomed the report. The account did not specify the fleet size, the proportion of journeys without human involvement or a new timetable for route expansion.