Russia operates a coal mine on Spitsbergen, an international territory under Norwegian administration. The workforce consists of Ukrainians and Russians. Now the cohesion of the once sworn community in the high arctic is over.
The Russian-maintained mining settlement of Barentsburg in the Spitsbergen archipelago. With a coal mine and around 400 inhabitants, more than half from Ukraine, Barentsburg is a kind of arctic mini Donbass.
When war came to Luhansk in spring 2014 with the separatist uprising in eastern Ukraine fueled by Moscow, Julia Litvinova just made it onto one of the last trains out of the Donbass region. Then the big fights started. She stayed with friends in Kharkiv and soon found a job as a seamstress. She met a Ukrainian woman who had just returned from a work trip to Spitsbergen and who was enthusiastic about this Arctic archipelago.
This piqued Litvinova’s interest. She managed to get a job there herself Barentsburgone of the two permanently settled places on the archipelago.
Located halfway between the North Cape and the North Pole, Spitsbergen is about one and a half times the size of Switzerland. In Barentsburg, Litvinowa came across a settlement with a coal mine and around 400 inhabitants. A good half of them came from Ukraine, about a third came from Russia. Litvinova found herself in a kind of mini-Donbass; apart from the climate it was almost like home. The coal mine was operated by the Russian company Arktikugol.
A special piece of earth
Although the Spitsbergen archipelago is under Norwegian administration, it is international territory and therefore a special case under international law. Residency is free for any interested party, albeit subject to certain conditions. For example, you have to be able to support yourself. All countries that signed the Spitsbergen Treaty, which came into force in 1925, are also allowed to use local resources and engage in economic activities. To date, however, only Norway and Russia have done this to a greater extent.
For these two states it is a matter of marking their foreign policy presence on the strategically important Arctic outpost. That’s why it doesn’t really matter that coal production has long been in deficit; economic activity is merely a means to an end.
“All were friends”
In Barentsburg, the Ukrainian Litvinowa and the Russian Sergei Chernikov told the High North News that there was a strong sense of community. All were friends. This is not surprising given the fact that in the Arctic wilderness people live lonely and depend on each other.
Only Longyearbyen, the main town of the archipelago with around 2,500 inhabitants that seems almost urban, is emotionally much further away for the people in Barentsburg than the air distance of around 40 kilometers would suggest. There is no road between the two places. In winter, the way is covered by snowmobile, in summer it is only possible by boat.
Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, however, harmony in Barentsburg has come to an end. This also has to do with the fact that Arktikugol, the only employer, is a Russian state company and as such politically represents the official line of the Kremlin. Yulia Litvinowa had already changed jobs before the invasion and has been living in Longyearbyen ever since. She is not directly exposed to Russian propaganda. But through acquaintances she knows how it bubbles under the surface in Barentsburg. For example, an anti-war poster disappeared just five minutes after it was hung up.
A microcosm in turmoil
Visit Svalbard, the tourism agency von Spitsbergen, recently called on its members to stop buying services from providers in Barentsburg. Because this money flows into a Russian state company and can be used to finance the war in Ukraine. This, in turn, drove a local Norwegian upset. They had always been friends on Spitsbergen and should remain so, he told the NRK television channel.
The atmosphere is not only tense in the microcosm of Svalbard, as the archipelago is called in Norwegian, but also between Oslo and Moscow. In mid-June, a Russian truck carrying two freight containers with food and other supplies destined for Barentsburg to be loaded onto a ship bound for Tromso was stopped near Kirkenes at the only road border crossing between Norway and Russia. Norway has adopted the EU sanctions against Russia and its roads and ports closed to Russian traffic.
This led to a heated exchange of blows between Norway and Russia. A representative of Arktikugol warned of an impending humanitarian catastrophe if food and medicines for the winter season did not reach Barentsburg; the Kremlin spoke of a “blockade” and threatened “consequences”.
Coal mining in Barentsburg. Though a dubious business financially, Russia maintains economic activity in order to establish a permanent presence in the strategically important Svalbard archipelago.
Norway fears for its position
Norway’s Foreign Minister Anniken Huitfeldt resolutely rejected this. Russia is at liberty to send a ship to Barentsburg itself; the ports of Spitsbergen are explicitly excluded from the sanctions. From an injury to Spitsbergen Treaty by Norway, as claimed by Russia, there can be no question.
This opinion is also Oystein Jensenan expert on the law of the sea and international institutions at the Fritjof Nansen Institute: Norway’s land border with Russia has absolutely nothing to do with the Spitsbergen Treaty, he says.
However, Oslo may have registered with some concern that Russia is only too happy to use the incident to once again cast doubt on Norway’s powers in the exercise of the administration of Spitsbergen. With the steady deterioration of the bilateral climate since the annexation of Crimea in 2014, such pinpricks in Moscow are repeated regularly.
The natural resources in the sea around the archipelago are always the subject of debate. Which deposits fall under the Spitsbergen Treaty and are therefore open to use by all contracting parties, and which can be claimed exclusively by Norway? Because the treaty was signed a hundred years ago, but the law of the sea has since evolved, there is indeed room for interpretation. And because the Arctic is becoming more accessible for raw material extraction due to global warming, the topic is becoming increasingly relevant.
However, the High Arctic has also become the geostrategic focus of the rival great powers USA, Russia and China. The more interesting the area becomes for the political heavyweights, the more they may be tempted to push for a reassessment of Norway’s role in the Spitsbergen Treaty. In Oslo, therefore, great efforts are made to keep the boat calm. That Russian cargo at the border crossing with Norway Onward transport in Norwegian trucks has recently been allowedshould be seen against this background.