Sweden and Finland will help NATO counter Russia in the Arctic
Three Russian submarines, apparently equipped to carry 16 ballistic missiles with multiple nuclear warheads, broke through at the same time the ice near the North Pole in March 2021. The boats were soon joined by two MiG-31 aircraft and ground troops that participated in Umka-2021, a Russian Arctic military exercise that signaled a new and dangerous era for the polar region and the world. But Sweden’s and Finland’s accession to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization provides an opportunity to include the Kremlin’s strategy for dominance of the Arctic and the North Pole.
Thanks to climate change, the Arctic has increasingly become a navigable sea route. The maximum ice coverage reach the lowest level ever5.57 million square kilometers, 2017. A model proposes The Arctic Ocean may be largely free of ice in the summer of 2035, although some experts say the mid-2040s are more realistic. This means that nations bordering the Arctic, including the United States and Russia, will have a huge share in who has access to and control over the resources of this energy- and mineral-rich region, as well as the new sea routes for global trade. -off creates. Forty-three of the nearly 60 large oil and natural gas fields that have been discovered in the Arctic are in Russia, according to a 2009 report by the US Department of Energy. Eleven are in Canada, six in Alaska and one in Norway.