News & Views on the Russian presence within the Arctic Circle
27 April 2010
The importance of this doesn’t need to be emphasized but utro.ru have reported that Norway and Russia have concluded an agreement about the delineation of maritime boundaries in the Barents Sea which will be called, ‘Agreement on maritime delimitation and cooperation in the Barents Sea and Arctic Ocean.” The report stresses that the precise legal details still need... Read More...
26 April 2010
In the light of concerns about the relative (declining?) position of the west in the world, such as these expressed in this book by an HSBC economist, I often wonder whether it would be better if western countries couldn’t fix on a more coordinated approach to issues such as Russia’s development of the Arctic region. Medvedev’s visit to Norway to discuss such... Read More...
24 April 2010
infox.ru reports on Norway’s negotiations with Russia concerning the Barents Sea ahead of the visit next week of President Medvedev to Oslo. The headline emphasizes that Norway is in no hurry to conclude an agreement, which contradicts some opinion expressed before when the Norwegians went to Moscow. The tangle of issues includes Spitzbergen and even the Shtokman project. The... Read More...
23 April 2010
This report in риа-новости quotes a researcher at the National Geophysical Observatory speaking at a conference in St. Petersburg which states that there will be a prolonged period of global cooling, peaking after 15 years. The scientist claims that the oscillation in the global temperature is greater than that observed under global warming. There is explicit criticsism... Read More...
23 April 2010
Special Envoy of the Russian Foreign Ministry Anton Vasiliev made a good job of explaining Russia’s Arctic plans in the RIA Novocti interview with journalists from London, Moscow, Finland, France and also some experts and academics. The discussion was wide-ranging and based on Medvedev’s 2020 document. The discussion covered issues of climate change, transport and communications,... Read More...
22 April 2010
… have suddenly entered the fray. This report here is on the attempt of a yacht Peter 1st to circumnavigate the Arctic Ocean without the assistance of an ice-breaker. The expedition will take place this June and will follow the northern sea route. You could almost miss the significance of this event until it is claimed that, ‘the success of the expedition will secure... Read More...
20 April 2010
In a response to the speech given in the Duma noted here, and which is repeated here, the satirists have hit back. The representative of the United Russia party was keen for all journalists and commentators to fall in behind the government’s plans for the Arctic, instead of defending terrorists who blow people up on trains. In the internet publication MKRU a fair amount of scorn... Read More...
19 April 2010
RIA Novocti has a good deal of multimedia material on the Arctic in advance of upcoming meetings, such as the Arctic Council meeting at the end of the month. There is a press conference here with Special Envoy of the Russian Foreign Ministry Anton Vasiliev which will take me some time to digest and understand. In the meantime, again in line with a number of reports from recent days,... Read More...
16 April 2010
The cultural dimension of Russia’s Arctic policies is repeated again today in a debate in the Duma, underlining the almost intense ideological elements that were evident, for example, in the ‘Kraftwerk video’ (yesterday). According to Michael Nenashev, Duma Member and representative of United Russia Party it is necessary to create a common cultural position for the unification... Read More...
15 April 2010
радио-голос, which consistently takes a tough line in these matters, reports that the USA is going to use an air-transit route over the North Pole to Afghanistan. This plan does not take into account the interests of Russia, could potentially use Russian air-space and ‘американские транзитные планы идут в разрез с курсом на... Read More...
SubscribeTo the Arctic Russia RSS feed to receive up to date news