The bear claws the ice, so Russia aims to dominate the Arctic

by time news

Time.news – There are those who have come to predict that the Arctic will be the epicenter of the Third World War. Certainly the “white continent” will be one of the geopolitical theaters to keep an eye on for the next decades, the new frontier of the clash between world superpowers. It is an immense and substantially extra-territorial region, increasingly liquid and navigable due to the melting of ice produced by climate change, a crossroads of economic, commercial, energy and military interests that oppose Russia, the United States and China.

The Arctic Council

The Arctic Council, the main intergovernmental organization to promote cooperation in the region, which in addition to Russia includes the United States, Canada, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Finland and Iceland, met in Reykjavik these days. Moscow took over the rotating presidency and the topics discussed by the foreign ministers were Arctic cooperation and environmental sustainability.
In the background, however, is the military challenge to control a strategic ‘continent’ that contains more than a fifth of all unused hydrocarbon resources, rich in copper and rare mineral deposits.

© AFP

The Russian base in the Arctic

The Russian base

It is no coincidence that for the occasion, Moscow showed its muscles by opening up to the visit of journalists its northernmost military base located in the Arctic Ocean, in the remote archipelago of Franz Josef’s Land, the walrus paradise.
It is a complex built on the ruins of a Soviet site that extends over 14,000 meters
square, with missile systems and capable of withstanding sieges or natural disasters for up to a year thanks to a power plant, a water purification plant and a heating system. There is also an airport (a two hour flight from Murmansk, headquarters of the Northern Fleet) and all the structures are connected by heated tunnels to avoid the rigors of temperatures that can reach 40 degrees below zero, being less than a thousand kilometers under the North Pole.
The base, nicknamed Arctic clover due to its shape, it is also equipped with comfort for its 150 military: there are a gym, a cinema, a sauna but also a clinic and a church. The two MiG-31s ​​departed from this base and flew over the entire North Pole in March, the first for the Russian navy.

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The new routes

The Arctic is also strategic for trade routes: the Earth is closer to the Poles and with the decrease in ice cover, the possibility of enormous distance savings for ships opens up, as is already the case for intercontinental flights from New York. in Beijing or from Europe to Japan. The sea passages to the north-west or north-east, once impracticable, are now practicable for many months of the year.

The Arctic Ocean is expected to be iceberg-free, and therefore fully navigable, for the entire summer season by 2040. Russia, landlocked on the South Seas, predicts that
cargo traffic along the polar route will be increased tenfold. And now it hopes to use the North Sea Route shipping channel to export oil and gas to overseas markets. As early as 2017, a Russian oil tanker was the first ship in history to travel the polar route without being escorted by an icebreaker: it brought a cargo of liquefied natural gas from Norway to South Korea in 19 days, 30% of the time. cheaper than routes using the Suez Canal.

The claims of Moscow

Moscow demands a right of control over the flowing waters from the Siberian port of Yamal to the Bering Strait in China and requires ships to ask for his permission for transit, effectively limiting access and freedom of navigation.
The United States is not watching this game and, after accusing Russia of “militarizing” the Arctic, it has deployed four B-1 and 200 military bombers to Norway’s Orland base for the first time. For the Biden Administration, commercial and safety issues intersect with environmental commitment, in one of the most delicate areas on the planet.
Even China, while not overlooking the Arctic like the eight countries of the Council, since 2018 has defined itself as a “quasi-Arctic” state and aims to add a Polar Silk Road to its Belt and Road. The EU, with the Nordic countries at the forefront of this immense sea of ​​ice, focuses on environmental protection, navigation safety and cooperation between states in order not to be crushed in the Cold War that looms above the Arctic Circle.

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