Myanmar Military Clears Land for Russia-Backed Dawei Port
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- Myanmar's military deployed roughly 700 soldiers into Tanintharyi Region since late June, burning villages and battling local resistance groups around the planned Dawei deep-sea port, according to conflict monitor ACLED.
- Three aid workers supporting displaced communities were detained and killed by an advancing military column in Yebyu Township on July 9, according to civil society group MAGGA Initiative.
- Junta leader Min Aung Hlaing pitched Dawei as a gateway to South and West Asia during an August visit to Thailand and discussed the project again this week in Moscow talks with Russia's Vladimir Putin.
- The Dawei SEZ could cut cargo transit times by 4 to 6 days compared with the Strait of Malacca, Tanintharyi Chief Minister Zaw Naing Oo told a Moscow business forum on August 19, while touting the port's 45km proximity to offshore gas fields.
- Originally launched in 2008 as a Thai-Myanmar joint venture, the project stalled in 2013 and terminated its initial construction-phase agreements in January 2021, weeks before the coup that has since killed roughly 100,000 and displaced over 3.5 million.
- Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin said this week that Russian companies intend to work with the Dawei SEZ to expand trade and create jobs, with a source familiar with Moscow's thinking noting the project could give Russia an Indian Ocean port footprint — but warning that Russian investment would need Thai connectivity to be viable.
- The Dawei push follows a late-June visit by armed forces deputy chief Kyaw Swar Lin, who urged soldiers to protect 'strategic projects,' and reflects the military's broader effort to reclaim border territory lost to opposition forces since 2021.
Why it matters: Myanmar's military is using lethal force to clear civilians from land earmarked for a Russia-backed port that would bypass the Strait of Malacca — a project a Moscow source says could give Russia an Indian Ocean foothold, contingent on Thai connectivity. For the roughly 3.5 million people already displaced by the civil war, the offensive adds a new front in territory the junta deems strategically vital to its post-coup economic and geopolitical alignment with Moscow.
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