Over the last few years, Russia has been accelerating and intensifying the energy, commercial and military development of its land and sea Arctic region. The Russian political, industrial and trade authorities are creating an energy, industry and maritime trade corridor, which connects Asia to Europe. By the same operation, they are turning their Arctic zone into a new oil and gas Eldorado (Charles Emerson, The Future History of the Arctic, 2010).
What makes this extreme endeavour possible is the fact that this immense region is profoundly affected by the warming wrought by anthropogenic climate change. In effect, during the last fifty years, the Arctic region has known the most rapidly warming on the planet, with a 3° to 4° degrees increase in average temperatures (Thomas Nilsen, “Arctic Russia Warms 2.5 Times Faster Than the Rest of the Globe”, The Independent Barents Observer, November 29, 2015).
The disappearance of the Arctic sea ice is most strikingly shown in this 28 October 2016 animation gathering latest research by NASA below, where “Dr. Walt Meier of NASA Goddard Space Flight Center also describes how the sea ice has undergone fundamental changes during the era of satellite measurements.” (NASA, “See How Arctic Sea Ice Is Losing Its Bulwark Against Warming Summers “, 28 Oct 216).
This mammoth change is profoundly altering the geophysics of the region, and goes with a decrease of the time, extent and thickness of the sea ice and of the land glacial conditions. In thirty years, between the half and two-thirds of the summer Arctic sea ice have disappeared, setting up the conditions for a thermal feed back loop that keeps the ice increasingly melting, while the Arctic ocean absorbs more and more solar radiation, and heats up. This feed back loop is now qualified as “the Arctic death spiral”(Joe Romm, “Arctic Death Spiral Update: What Happens in the Arctic Affects Every Where Else”, Think Progress, May 3, 2016; see also video above).
The Russians translate into geoeconomic and geopolitical opportunities those geophysical changes. Consequently, this extreme region becomes accessible for industrial development, and, as we have seen in “Russian Arctic Oil: a New Economic and Security Paradigm?” (The Red (Team) Analysis Society, October 12, 2016), the Russian oil and gas companies have started to implement onshore and offshore operations for extracting oil in the extreme conditions resulting from the meeting of cold and extreme weather, sea ice and the warming effects of climate change.
Among many examples, a subsidiary the National oil company Rosneft, has started drilling in the Okhotsk Sea, while Rosneft keeps on exploring the area (Atle Staalesen, “No Pause in Arctic Exploration – Igor Sechin”, The Independent Barents Observer, July 18, 2016). Meanwhile, Rosneft continues to buy exploitation licenses. The last to date, but not the least, is the Lisiansky one, which should be operated through a partnership with the Norwegian Statoil, while the drilling itself is done by the Chinese rig “Nanhai 9” (Staalesen, ibid).
If the warming of the Arctic makes the latter more accessible, the summer disaggregation of the ice cap gives birth to numerous icebergs, which are a vital danger to the oil rigs operating in the Russian economic exclusive zone. In order to prevent this risk, Rosneft is investing in systems of protection, while developing systems to “move away” the icebergs from the oil rigs. During the summer 2016, an expedition led to create a scientific basis in the Laptev Sea allowed experimenting with 18 different ways to tug icebergs ( Atle Staalesen, “Rosneft Builds Base on Laptev Sea Coast”, The Independent Barents Observer, August 10, 2016). A one million tons iceberg was moved at one occasion (Atle Staalesen, “Rosneft Moves 1 Million Ton Big Iceberg”, The Independent Barents Observer, October 11, 2016). This operational approach aims at guaranteeing the technical sustainability of the Russian Arctic strategy.
The current relative retreat of the sea ice also incites Russian shipping companies to build a whole new generation of diesel and nuclear giant icebreakers. Those are devoted to the constant opening of the Northern Sea Route (RT, “Russia Floats Out Arktika Icebreaker, set to be world’s largest”, 16 June, 2016).Latest map (5/8/2015) of Russian claims in the Arctic, as maintained by IBRU: Centre for Borders Research of Durham University.Click here (pdf) to access large map with details and here to access IBRU Center.
However, the Arctic remains an extreme region, with a fragile environment, necessitating the capability to coordinate shipping convoys, harbours and infrastructure security in the context of extreme weather. In order to achieve maximum security and coordination in this extreme environment, the Kremlin decided to put the Russian ministry of Defence in charge of the whole Arctic shipping operations in the Russian Arctic economic exclusive zone. This decision is fully involving the military in the development of the region. To implement this decision, the Ministry of Defence notably created the Oboronlogitika Company in 2011. The company is owned by the Russian ministry of Defence and is in charge of all the civilian and military shipping operations in the area (Atle Staalesen, “Ministry of Defence Takes Charge of Arctic Shipping”, The Independent Barents Observer, July 07, 2016).
The Arctic space is also developed by the Russian military through the creation of new bases on the Wrangel Island, North of the Bering Strait at the extreme east of the Northern Sea Route as well as on the archipelago of the Franz Joseph Land – north of the Barents Sea – on the north-west coast of Siberia and thus of the Northern sea route (Atle Staalesen, “Arctic Brigade Advances on Franz Joseph Land”, The Independent Barents Observer, October 03, 2016 and (Mathew Bodner, Alexey “Russia Starts Building Military Bases in the Arctic”, The Moscow Times, 8 Sept 2014). Meanwhile, the Russian political and economic authorities are using the military in order to push for the creation of new land and sea infrastructures along the Siberian coast, on the islands and on the coasts of the Siberian Archipelago in the Barents Sea, the Kara Sea, the Laptev Sea, the terribly cold and dangerous Chukchi Sea, the Eastern Siberian Sea and the Strait of Bering (Atle Staalesen, “Rosneft Prepares Seismic Mapping of eastern Arctic Waters”, The Independent Barents Observer, April 15, 2016).
The infrastructures, especially harbours, coast guards, and environmental survey, among others, which are needed on the Siberian coast in order to develop the Northern Sea route, also necessitate to bring much more power to the cities, harbours and industries on these northern zones, which were so far quite isolated.
For example, the harbour city of Pevek, on the East Siberia Sea, the northernmost Russian city, is preparing the infrastructures that are going to host the first floating nuclear reactor (Atle Staalesen, “Russia’s Northernmost Town Prepares for Nuclear Future”, The Independent Barents Observer, October 04, 2016). This reactor is being built at the Baltic Yards in St. Petersburg, by Rosernergoatom, a subsidiary of the mammoth national company Rosatom (Nick Cunningham, “Russia to Power Arctic Drilling with Floating Nuclear reactors”, OilPrice.com, April 27, 2015). After a whole year of test, the nuclear reactor, the “Akademik Lomonossov” will be transported to Pevek, where it is expected to power the city (Staalesen, ibid).
This floating nuclear reactor, the first of a series, is meant to have the capability to power a 200.000 people city, when Pevek hosts less than 5000 inhabitants. This discrepancy shows the strategic importance given to this city close to the Bering Strait. In effect, Pevek is destined to grow with the increasing number of the international shipping convoys, which will be using the Route (Atle Staalesen, “Aiming for Year Round Sailing on Northern Sea Route”, The Independent Barents Observer, December 14, 2015). Other floating nuclear reactors are meant to be built and used in order to power the numerous onshore and offshore new Russian infrastructures, which are rapidly structuring the Russian Arctic space (Staalesen, ibid).
In other terms, with the development of the Arctic, Russia installs itself into a long game of business and strategy (Emerson, ibid). This goes with the rapidly developing Russo-Chinese cooperation in the Arctic.
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