Putin's Grab for the Arctic

[Syt]

http://rt.com/news/197936-russia-arctic-military-shoigu/

Russian bases to span entire Arctic border by end of 2014

Russia will have military control of the entirety of its 6,200 km Arctic coastal zone by the end of 2014, just a year after Moscow announced its ambitious plan to build military presence in the region, Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu has announced.

"We have set quite a pace in our foray into the Arctic," Shoigu said during a military council meeting in Moscow. "By the end of the year we will already deploy most of our units in the region – from Murmansk to Chukotka."

Moscow announced its intentions to create a special force grouping in the strategic region in December last year, with Vladimir Putin saying that Russia needs to activate "all the levers for the protection of its security and national interests" in the "promising region."

The undertaking, which Shoigu labeled "fundamental," is now in full flow.

"Many of the sites in the region have to be repaired. In fact, a lot of them, such as airfields, logistics facilities, water intakes, power stations will have to be built from scratch, which is what we are doing right now."

Russia's Northern Fleet, which is headquartered in Severomorsk on the Kola Peninsula, has been assigned as the core of the new Joint Strategic Command, and also the main strike force.

READ MORE: Ice voyage challenge: RT joins Russian Navy fleet in Arctic base build-up mission

Two Borey-class nuclear submarines, which will form the spine of the refurbished fleet, have been armed this year, and a third one has just completed trials. In total, eight Borey vessels are expected to be built by the end of the decade, though some of them may be re-deployed with the Pacific fleet.

Russia is also in the process of unsealing at least seven airstrips that were shut down following the collapse of the Soviet Union, with Tiksi in Yakutia expected to house the bulk of the Arctic air force.

Work also began in September on a permanent base located on the New Siberian Islands in the Laptev Sea. A military group consisting of two brigades will be stationed in the far North as part of the new military district.

The Arctic has attracted an increasingly intense gaze from the powerful nations that border it in the past decade, not least because it is thought to contain up to 30 percent of the world's oil and gas. As technologies have advanced, more and more of those hydrocarbons have become recoverable and viable. The stretch of sea can also provide new shipping lanes for goods traveling between Asia and America and Europe.

Russia already has rights to any territories located within 370 km of its border, but has lodged claims on a much bigger part of the territory with the UN, due to the existence of an underwater shelf, which would make a sizeable portion of the Arctic an extension of Russian territory.

Canada and other Arctic powers have followed suit, with the exact divisions of territories expected to be decided over the course of the next decade.

Despite concerns from environmentalists, Shoigu said that the military would play a positive role in safeguarding the unique Arctic environment, and said that units are already engaged in a program of clearing up debris "that has accumulated for centuries."

The Grauniad's view:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/21/russia-arctic-military-oil-gas-putin

Russia prepares for ice-cold war with show of military force in the Arctic

Vladimir Putin sends troops and jets to oil- and gas-rich region also coveted by Canada, United States, Norway and Denmark

Yaya is a very small Arctic island, barely one metre above sea level and covering only 500 square metres. Russian pilots discovered it at the beginning of October. With the Admiral Vladimirsky research ship having confirmed its presence in the Laptev Sea, Yaya will soon be added to the map of the Arctic Ocean and will become part of Russian territory, the RIA Novosti state news agency announced. In its determination to defend its interests in this icy waste, Russia is no longer content to leave its mark, as it did in 2007 when it planted a Russian flag, in a titanium capsule, 4,200 metres below the north pole. Now it is engaging in large-scale militarisation of the Arctic, a vast area coveted by itself and its four neighbours: Canada, the United States, Norway and Denmark.

RIA Novosti says that former Soviet bases are being reactivated in response to renewed Nato interest in the region. According to the Russian authorities, the airstrip on Novaya Zemlya can now accommodate fighters and part of the North Fleet is establishing quarters there. A new military group will be formed in the far north consisting of two brigades, totalling 6,000 soldiers, deployed in the Murmansk area and then the Yamal-Nenets autonomous region. Radar and ground guidance systems are also planned for Franz Josef Land (part of Novaya Zemlya), Wrangel Island and at Cape Schmidt. The federal security service plans to increase the number of border guards on Russia's northern perimeter.

During the recent Vostok 2014 full-scale military exercises – the biggest since the end of the Soviet Union – Russian troops carried out combat missions in the Arctic, using the Pantsir-S and Iskander-M weapon systems. Such moves may bring back the atmosphere of the cold war, when the region was the focus of US and Nato attention, as they were convinced that it would be a launchpad for nuclear strikes.

"In those days of acute paranoia, when it seemed vital to keep track of enemy submarines and protect your own, this maybe made sense. But the current military buildup is pointless," says Alexander Golts, military analyst and deputy editor of the Yezhenedelny Zhurnal (Weekly Journal), a news site that was censored hours after Crimea was annexed. "It is consistent with the stance of the Russian state, which only understands the word 'force' in military terms," he adds. "But you must keep it in proportion; it is still only a symbolic battle. Take a look at the map and you will soon see that 6,000 men spread over such a huge area is not much."

"It makes no sense," says Vladimir Chuprov at Greenpeace Russia. "The only justification can be the will, yet again, to unite the Russian people in the face of an enemy on the outside who is supposedly trying to take 'our' Arctic, despite there being no threat. It's a drill ground on which Russia can flex its muscles, and more a matter of world politics than economics."

The Arctic's hydrocarbon resources nevertheless exert a powerful pull. It has been compared to "a second Middle East", with oil and gas reserves thought to represent 17% and 30%, respectively, of the global total. But the extreme climatic conditions and recent international sanctions against Russia have put many projects on hold. At present Russia is extracting no more than 6.6m tonnes of oil a year in this area, compared with "4.5m tonnes lost in the whole country due to leaking pipelines", according to Greenpeace.

And then there is the North-east Passage, a sea lane between Asia and the US, which will ultimately open as the ice melts, providing an alternative to the Suez canal. But here again there is considerable uncertainty, due to the exorbitant cost of using nuclear ice-breakers to keep it open. Russia owns four of these ships. But "one of them costs $120,000 a day to operate", Chuprov says. He is also concerned about the environmental impact of a military buildup in the Arctic. "During the recent military exercises the missiles were launched on Wrangel Island, with no observers, in an area which is a breeding ground for polar bears and walruses."

On 11 October, in an attempt to forestall such criticism, the Russian defence ministry announced plans to build "a regional environmental centre [...] to prevent pollution in areas where Russian forces are deployed". Russian troops systematically receive "training and briefings on environmental safety and compliance with legislation", deputy minister Dmitry Bulgakov added. But it will take more than this to reassure the western powers.

The Arctic, which is governed by international maritime law, is also the focus of other disputes. Canada regularly carries out military exercises in its Arctic territory. Relations between Ottawa and Moscow have cooled significantly since the start of the Ukraine crisis.

[Liep]

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