News & Views on the Russian presence within the Arctic Circle
7 May 2010
Taimyr local government officials report that there will be a meeting between interested parties taking place in Dudinka in the Taimyr region in order to discuss, ‘information on the construction of a new icebreaker, which will go into Dudinskiy port, the practical results of hydrometeorological support of navigation of ships along the Murmansk Norilsk Nickel-Murmansk-Dudinka, as well... Read More...
5 May 2010
Just a brief reminder of one of the central aspects of control over the NSR – the capacity to mount search and rescue operations. A local newspaper from Vladivokstok reminds its readers of the rescue of two fishing boats from the ice back in January by an ice-breaker from the Sakhalin shipping company. (There is more from this blog on search and rescue here). The rescue also involved... Read More...
1 April 2010
A company called Scanex has won a contract to provide satellite data for purposes of monitoring ice-conditions on the NSR. Data, I think the report is saying, will then be relayed to users via a portal run by Komosnimki. The contract was awarded by Atomflot. All of this, in the context of a certain amount of uncertainty as to the near future of the climate in the Arctic Seas, and... Read More...
23 March 2010
правда севера reports on a meeting of the United Russia party held in St. Petersburg where presentations were given on the northern sea route which specified that the route is uneconomic when compared with the Suez route in winter but that it is more economical than Suez in the summer. References were also made to Chilingarov’s new legal framework for the NSR entitled,«Северный... Read More...
10 March 2010
независимая reports a SIPRI study into Chinese attitudes towards the Arctic and Russia’s plans for the development of the Arctic. Chinese interest is motivated by the potential that Russia will charge high rates for shipping along the NSR. Chinese participation in the recent Arctic Frontiers conference was noted on this blog here. The SIPRI author states that control... Read More...
27 February 2010
According to portnews the Arctic Council will institute a common framework for search and rescue operations, so claims State Secretary, Deputy Transport Minister Sergei Aristov in the opening speech of the first meeting of the Task Force of the Arctic Council. According to the report, it is the view of the Minister that ’ the creation of a unified regional Arctic search and... Read More...
11 February 2010
It has been a long time coming but радио голос росии carried an interview with Artur Chilingarov, all round Russian Arctic hero, the kind of Arctic veteran that makes Pen Haddow look like BenFogle. His comments touch on a number of significant areas including: the claim at the UN where ‘cоблюсти свои национальные интересы России... Read More...
27 January 2010
The fate of the Smolninskii was widely covered by a large number of news agencies. MIXA.TV has some good and rather scary footage of the kind of conditions that ship was in and many agencies reported that some of the crew were rescued my MI-8 helicopter. вести.ru has photos of the kind of ‘icing’ that led the ship to list, and which threatened to sink it. Eventually... Read More...
14 December 2009
Again the question of the rights of passage on the NSR under conditions of global warming appears as the subject of discussion, this time in RUSNORD under the heading ‘Global Warming to ‘Set at odds’ the Countries of the North’ - (admittedly, this is not a very good translation but it captures the literal meaning). According to the author: “Article 234 of... Read More...
10 December 2009
мурманск-вестник, always a good source, closer to the gritty realities of Arctic Russia today than many of the big nationals, carries what can only be described as a public annoucement. Dimitry Dmitrienko, Governor of Mumansk Oblast, sees a busy future for Murmansk, with increases in wages and over 3/4 of a billion roubles being spent in the region. He emphasizes ‘ the... Read More...
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