RUSSIA TO DEPLOY TROOPS TO DEFEND INTERESTS IN ARCTIC
- JULY 2, 2011
Russia’s defense minister said officials haven’t yet worked out the details of troops or weaponry, but that the brigades, which usually number a few thousand troops, would be cobbled together with an eye toward the experience of Russia’s northern neighbors—Finland, Norway and Sweden—which already have such northern forces.
“The location will be determined, as well as weapons, numbers and infrastructure for the brigades,” said Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov, according to Russian news agencies. “They could be put in Murmansk, Archangelsk or another place.”
Russia has staked a claim to a large part of the Arctic, which is thought to hold as much as a quarter of the world’s oil and gas reserves, arguing that an underwater ridge running from its northern Siberian shores leads directly to the North Pole.
As Arctic ice melts amid rising global temperatures—surface temperatures in 2010 tied those of 2005 as the warmest on record, according to NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies—countries abutting the Arctic Circle are vying for new shipping routes and fishing grounds, as well as oil and gas drilling opportunities.
To cap its claim, Russia floated a small submarine under the ice caps four years ago and planted a titanium flag on the ocean floor, an act that had more symbolic than legal significance.
Lately Moscow has been resounding its claims, and on Thursday Prime Minister Vladimir Putin told a pro-Kremlin party congress in the Ural Mountains that Russia would build a $33 billion year-round port on the Yamal Peninsula, in the Russian Arctic.
Mr. Putin said Russia was “open to dialogue” with its northern neighbors, but will “strongly and persistently” defend its interests in the region.
Russia’s claims mostly antagonize Canada and Denmark, whose ambitions most closely overlap Russia’s in the region.
By deploying forces in the north, Moscow is again sending a message, mostly symbolic, that its claim to the Arctic regions is serious, said Fyodor Lukyanov, editor of the Moscow-based Russia in Global Affairs magazine.
“The Russian position is that in order to be respected they need to have some forces there,” said Mr. Lukyanov. But he added, “I don’t think that Russia feels it will ever need these forces to defend its interests.”
In May, the eight nations abutting the Arctic Circle, the Arctic Council, tried to sound a note of civility by signing an agreement to coordinate search-and-rescue missions in the region. At its meeting in Greenland, the council tiptoed around the tougher issue of territorial claims. But the U.S. said it hopes the agreement could be a template for solving future security issues.
The council is comprised of Russia, the U.S., Canada, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Finland and Iceland.
Write to Alan Cullison at alan.cullison@wsj.com
