When we talk about the security situation in the Arctic, a region shared by five countries, including the American and Russian superpowers, which is home to a nuclear arsenal as well as strategic natural resources, it is often tempting to evoke yet another cold war. to suggest the rivalries taking place under the pack ice. Sometimes it’s justified. Sometimes it’s a gesture.
Russia, a decisive player, possessing nearly half of the polar territory and 24,000 kilometers of coastline, launched a massive remilitarization plan there in 2014. The American army reacted belatedly by announcing, in January 2021, a “regaining dominance over the Arctic”. The last two decades have certainly been dotted with incidents in the Arctic Ocean, involving the various forces involved. Nothing comparable, however, to the explosion caused, on February 24, 2022, by the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The attention of Western intelligence services then focused on the Arctic, and on the submarine cables submerged off the coast, essential for the Internet service of the financial center of London and for the passage of satellite images of the Greater North to the United States, across the Atlantic. The vulnerability of the NATO allies had already been highlighted during sabotage, of unidentified origin, targeting Norway, a country destined to become Europe’s leading supplier of oil and gas, as the implementation of international sanctions adopted against Moscow. In January 2022, an attack had thus damaged, in the Svalbard archipelago, a cable supplying SvalSat, the world’s largest satellite data reception station, used by NASA and the European Space Agency. The double explosion, on September 26, on the Nord Stream gas pipelines had reinforced this sense of urgency and the fear of seeing Russia widen the scope of operations…
Today, when asked about the impact of the war in Ukraine on the Arctic, one of the most unexpected answers – and the most significant in terms of security, but also human – is in these obituaries, taken from the Telegram account of Vladimir Ouïba, governor of the Republic of Komi, a Russian region crossed by the polar circle. Like this one, published on November 2, 2022 : “Dear inhabitants of the Republic! It is with pain that I inform you of the death of our compatriot Corporal of the Russian Guard Vladimir Yevgenyevich Oplesnin, during the special military operation [en Ukraine]. Vladimir Yevgenyevich was born in Syktyvkar [capitale régionale]. In service under contract since 2014. In September 2022, he continued his service in the Republic of Chechnya, then in the territory of the special military operation. Served as a gunner. He died heroically in the village of Davydov Brod [Davydiv Brid en ukrainien], Kherson region, defending Russia and our compatriots against neo-Nazis. Eternal glory and memory to the Defender of the Fatherland. »
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