Russia warns NATO of clashes in the Arctic; Says that Sweden’s and Finland’s accession to the US-led military bloc will worsen the situation
A Russian top official has expressed concern that non-Arctic NATO members are involved in military activities in the Arctic and warned of unintentional clashes with NATO forces in the region, the state-owned TASS agency reported.
“The internationalization of the Alliance’s high-latitude military activities, which involve non-Arctic NATO states, can only cause concern. In this regard, there are risks of unintentional incidents that, in addition to security risks, can also cause serious damage to the fragile Arctic ecosystem, says Nikolai Korchunov, Ambassador-at-Large of the Russian Foreign Ministry, chairman of the Senior Committee of Senior. Arctic Council officials told PAW.
The Arctic Council is an important intergovernmental forum in which nations holding sovereign territory in the Arctic discuss regional issues. The Council has 8 members which include Russia, the United States, Canada, Iceland, Finland, Norway, Denmark and Sweden, although other nations have observer status and some indigenous peoples have participatory status.
Russia currently holds the Presidency of the Council, but following its aggression in Ukraine, the other seven members have refused to attend Council meetings. At the same time, Russia is concerned about NATO’s increased military activity in the Arctic.
Currently, 5 of the 8 member countries of the Arctic Council – the United States, Denmark, Iceland, Norway and Canada – are also members of NATO, even though Iceland technically lacks an official army.
In March, NATO forces held their large-scale biennial “Cold Response” exercise in Norway, which took place very close to the Russian border and was attended by about 30,000 soldiers from 27 countries.
“The recent increase in NATO activity in the Arctic is a matter of concern. Recently, another large-scale military exercise of the Alliance took place in northern Norway, which in our view does not help ensure security in the region,” Korchunov said.
Sweden and Finland also took part in these military exercises, and in addition, both of these countries, the only members of the Arctic Council other than Russia that are not members of NATO, have expressed interest in joining the alliance in the light of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
“Certainly, an expansion of NATO at the expense of traditionally non-bloc countries will not contribute to security and mutual trust in the Arctic, which Russia consistently advocates,” Korchunov said, commenting on Sweden’s and Finland’s possible entry into the alliance.
The scenario for NATO’s military exercise in the Arctic Circle has been similar for years now: Norway is being attacked by a fictitious country, which triggers the alliance’s collective defense clause and leads to troops from the United States and more than a dozen partners coming to the defense of the country.
Relations between Norway and Russia, which share an Arctic border, gradually improved during the post-Cold War era, but Moscow’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 led to tensions on both sides of the border and more frequent military maneuvers.
Norway occupies one strategic position in Europe as NATO’s northernmost flank, with a shared land and sea border with Russia, and thus bears responsibility for a maritime domain (territorial waters and exclusive economic zones) that is almost as large as the Mediterranean.
In addition, Norway also exercises sovereignty over the Svalbard Islands, which lie far into the Arctic, away from the mainland.
These factors have made Norway increasingly concerned about Russia’s perceived self-confidence in Europe and the possibility of Moscow permanently changing the European security order in its favor through intimidation or the use of force.
In particular, they are concerned about Russia’s continued modernization of its northern fleet based in Murmansk and the increasing military activity in the north, an area believed to be rich in natural resources and where ice melting has opened up new shipping lanes.
As melting sea ice will do lighter for vessels traveling in the Arctic Ocean, this will lead to an increase in the number of large, mainly cargo vessels, crossing the sea, plus it will also enable easier access to the seabed, making it easier to monitor and extract resources from the seabed.
This will create security issues for the Arctic states, as they will need to regulate increased traffic through their territory and may conflict with each other over territorial claims, especially those that include valuable resources.
In 2020, NATO’s then top commander, Admiral James G Stavridis, warned that global warming and a race for resources could lead to conflicts in the Arctic.
“At the moment, the disputes in the north have been handled peacefully, but climate change may change the balance in the coming years in the course of temptations to exploit more accessible natural resources.” sa Stavridis.
In recent years, warmer summer months have also made the area more navigable. For example, in 2013, instead of using the traditional Panama Canal route, Nordic Orion, a commercial vessel, cancel their trip from Vancouver to the Finnish port of Pari with about 1,850 km by crossing the Arctic.
Also in 2017, the Russian oil tanker Christophe de Margerie traveled from Norway to South Korea without the help of an icebreaker.
The Royal Institute of International Affairs estimates that the region may contain up to 90 billion barrels of oil. According to the US Geological Survey, a fifth of the world’s natural gas lies untouched under the Arctic ice sheet. The area is also rich in precious metals.
According to a Report At the end of 2021 by Reclaim Finance, a non-governmental organization dealing with issues linking finance to social and climate justice, there are currently 599 oil and gas fields in production, under field evaluation or development, or at the discovery stage in the Arctic region. as defined by the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Program (AMAP), one of the Arctic Council’s working groups.
There are at least 24 companies, identified by this NGO, with short-term oil and gas plans in the Arctic AMAP area and 20 of them account for 99.3% of the new oil and gas fields’ reserves in this region.
Gazprom, the largest Russian energy company, with 74% of its reserves based there, is number one on the list, which also includes American ConocoPhillips, French TotalEnergies, Norwegian Equinor and Anglo-Dutch Shell.
In March 2017, President Putin visited an area of ββthe Arctic archipelago where he reportedly declared, “Natural resources, which are of paramount importance to the Russian economy, are concentrated in this region.”
The seas off the coast of Svalbard and the Jan Mayen islands ruled by Norway were once subject to fierce competition between the 17.th Century European powers for Greenland whales that live almost exclusively in the Arctic and that have traditionally been hunted by commercial whalers until the last century for oil, meat and whales.
England’s Muscovy Company and its rival Dutch Northern Company deployed heavily armed escorts to keep the whalers from the other side away from the bays of Svalbard. Climate change coincided with competition and conflict between these companies in the 17th century Arctic.
Volcanic eruptions during the 17th century temporarily covered much of the earth in veils of sunlight-scattering dust. Faced with such an “impetus”, the Arctic cooled in the early 17th century, warmed for a short time and then cooled even more than before.
During the cold years, sea ice usually lingered deep into the summer in bays along Svalbard and Jan Mayen, and when it did, neither whales nor whalers could enter these bays, leaving only a few of Svalbard’s many bays completely free of ice.
So the whales would all gather in these few ice-free bays and be easy to pick for careful whalers, but perhaps the limited amount of goods led the Dutch and English whalers to cooperate rather than fight, because a clash would have been so costly in the blood and the tax that this year’s profits would be completely wiped out.
But during hot years with little sea ice to stop them, whaling fleets spread in many different bays, and soldiers aboard English warships decided to chase isolated and therefore vulnerable whaling ships owned by rival companies and countries.
They would first warn them to leave Svalbard and the whalers would simply sail to the next available bay, but if they were rediscovered by English soldiers, fighting usually broke out.
So basically, hot years were violent years, which is what is expected for the future Arctic.
Today, Russia is known for having more security forces in the Arctic than any other state, due to its desire to protect the Arctic as a strategic resource base and this overpowering power in the region means that Moscow will have a major role to play in both Arctic shipping regulation and any conflicts.