News & Views on the Russian presence within the Arctic Circle
8 May 2010
Coming after the agreement over the Barents Sea and this week’s announcment of naval joint-exercises between Russia and Norway, which will test inter-operability in various scenarios such as emergency and rescue, armed attack on instillations, Norway is now focussing its Arctic diplomacy on the Arctic Council. The report in иносми is actually a translation of a Canadian article... Read More...
14 April 2010
This article in независимая, which in my opinion often offers one of the more ‘realist’ approaches to Arctic geopolitics, revisits some old themes. The author claims that during the 20th century, when the USSR claimed much of the Arctic region, up to the north pole, that this did not elicit any combative responses from other countries. Now, however, with the... Read More...
26 March 2010
While TACC reports opinion from within the USA ’s intelligence community that the Arctic will not become another zone of conflict независимое has sought out opinions from Russian politicians about this very issue. Foreign Minister Lavrov, for example, states that attempts to whip up rumours of conflict are unnecessary and counter-productive. Chilingarov argues that... Read More...
24 March 2010
So goes the headline in голос россии referring to the establishment of the Borneo station and a three year expedition starting in June, involving the Academic Federov, the research ship, accompanied by an ice-breaker. Meanwhile in St. Petersburg plans for an airship expedition to the north pole during 2011 were also announced by Chilingarov at the State Institute for Arctic... Read More...
22 March 2010
вести.ru has excellent first hand and detailed video footage of the establishment of the Russian polar station base Borneo, which I think took place over the weekend. The interviews with the scientists and pilots on board plus the commentary in вести emphasize the work that the station will do in understanding processes of climate change, which as we all know is of some interest... Read More...
15 March 2010
аргументы и факти reports that a French Naval Frigate will take part in exercises with the Northern fleet. Last week there were a number of reports on the visit of officials from Total to Murmansk in what is being called officially the year of France in Russia and the year of Russia in France. No-one can quite pin down why Russia is purchasing four French Mistral class... Read More...
12 March 2010
… according to a joke currently doing the rounds in the Russian military. This rather sceptical piece in flot2017 provides a snapshot of the various milestones in Arctic geopolitics over the past couple of years or so. The author suggests that, ‘Идею освоения Арктики в ХХІ веке российские политики и военные стратеги... Read More...
11 February 2010
A couple of agencies announce that 2010 will see the construction of a new, universal atomic powered ice-breaker, with 60 MW capacity and which will patrol the NSR, May to October in the East and all year around in the West. Meanwhile, infox has a report on NASA’s photographs of shrinking Arctic ice and is concerned about the possibility that this is a unidirectional process - ’но,... Read More...
10 February 2010
Under a headline about Russia’s military weakness newsland.ru discusses Russia’s military preparedness – for war and therefore for peace. The geopolitical analysis claims that the present unipolar world is unstable and compares Russia’s geopolitical position to that of Germany in the 1920s where – ‘Германская империя признала... Read More...
20 January 2010
Many agencies report the flight of two turbo prop Tupolev strategic bombers. I have reported these ’rehearsals’ many times before but readers should be aware that although the aircraft are classed as first strike weapons I personally fail to see how they could ever actually manage this as they are always ‘accompanied’ by NATO aircraft, this time two RAF Tornadoes... Read More...
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