The Arctic policy of Russia is the domestic and foreign policy of the Russian Federation with respect to the Russian region of the Arctic. The Russian region of the Arctic is defined in the "Russian Arctic Policy" as all Russian possessions located north of the Arctic Circle. Approximately one-fifth of Russia's landmass is north of the Arctic Circle. Russia is one of five littoral states bordering the Arctic Ocean. As of 2010, out of 4 million inhabitants of the Arctic, roughly 2 million lived in arctic Russia, making it the largest arctic country by population. However, in recent years Russia's Arctic population has been declining at an excessive rate.
The stated goals of Russia in its Arctic policy are to utilize its natural resources, protect its ecosystems, use the seas as a transportation system in Russia's interests, and ensure that it remains a zone of peace and cooperation. Russia currently maintains a military presence in the Arctic and has plans to expand it, as well as strengthen the Border Guard/Coast Guard presence there. Using the Arctic for economic gain has been done by Russia for centuries for shipping and fishing. Russia has plans to exploit the large offshore resource deposits in the Arctic. The Northern Sea Route is of particular importance to Russia for transportation, and the Russian Security Council is considering projects for its development. The Security Council also stated a need for increasing investment in Arctic infrastructure.
Russia conducts extensive research in the Arctic region, notably the drifting ice stations and the Arktika 2007 expedition, which was the first to reach the seabed at the North Pole. The research is partly aimed to back up Russia's territorial claims, specifically those related to Russia's extended continental shelf in the Arctic Ocean.
History On October 1, 1987, Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev, delivered the Murmansk Initiative stating six goals of the Soviet Union's Arctic foreign policy: establish a nuclear-free zone in Northern Europe; reduce military activity in the Baltic, Northern, Norwegian and Greenland Seas; cooperate on resource development; form an international conference on Arctic scientific research coordination; cooperate in environmental protection and management; and open the Northern Sea Route.
Geography
The Russian Ministry of Economic Development has identified eight Arctic Support Zones along the Arctic coast of Russia on which funds and projects will be focused, with the aim of fostering the economic potential of the Northern Sea Route while ensuring that the Russian presence will not be limited to resource extraction.
The eight zones are Kola, Arkhangelsk, Nenets, Vorkuta, Yamal-Nenets, Taimyr-Turukhan, North Yakutia and Chukotka. In the North Yakutia area, the project includes reconstruction of the Tiksi sea port and the port of Zelenomysky. In the Arkhangelsk zone, this will include the construction of the .
Exploration
The first recorded voyage to the Russian Arctic was by the Novgorodian Uleb in 1032, in which he discovered the Kara Sea. From the 11th to the 16th centuries, Russian coastal dwellers of the White Sea, or pomors, gradually explored other parts of the Arctic coastline, going as far as the Ob and Yenisey rivers, establishing trading posts in Mangazeya. Continuing the search of furs and walrus and mammoth ivory, the Siberian Cossacks under Mikhail Stadukhin reached the Kolyma River by 1644. Ivan Moskvitin discovered the Sea of Okhotsk in 1639 and Fedot Alekseyev Popov and Semyon Dezhnyov discovered the Bering Strait in 1648, with Dezhnyov establishing a permanent Russian settlement near the present day Anadyr.
After Peter I took the throne, Russia began to develop a navy and use it to continue its Arctic exploration. Vitus Bering explored Kamchatka in 1728, while Bering's aides Ivan Fyodorov and Mikhail Gvozdev discovered Alaska in 1732. The Great Northern Expedition, which lasted from 1733 to 1743, was one of the largest exploration enterprises in history, organized and led by Vitus Bering, Aleksei Chirikov and a number of other major explorers. A party of the expedition personally led by Bering and Chirikov discovered southern Alaska, the Aleutian Islands and the Commander Islands, while the parties led by Stepan Malygin, Dmitry Ovtsyn, Fyodor Minin, Semyon Chelyuskin, Vasily Pronchischev, Khariton Laptev and Dmitry Laptev mapped most of the Arctic coastline of Russia (from the White Sea in Europe to the mouth of Kolyma River in Asia). The expedition resulted in 62 large maps and charts of the Arctic region.
Territorial claims
Modern Russian territorial claims to the Arctic officially date back to April 15, 1926, when the Soviet Union claimed land between 32°04'35"E and 168°49'30"W. However, this claim specifically only applied to islands and lands within this region. The first maritime boundary between Russia and Norway, from the Varangerfjord, was signed in 1957. However, tensions resurfaced after both countries made continental shelf claims in the 1960s. Informal talks began in the 1970s about determining a boundary in the Barents Sea to settle differing claims, as Russia wanted the boundary to be a line running straight north from the mainland, more than what it had. On September 15, 2010, Foreign Ministers Jonas Gahr Støre and Sergei Lavrov, of Norway and Russia respectively, signed a treaty that effectively divided the disputed territory in half between the two countries, and also agreed to co-manage resources in that region where they overlap national sectors. The two countries had already been co-managing fisheries in the Barents since the 1978 Grey Zone Agreement, which has been renewed annually since it was signed.
On March 12, 1997, Russia ratified the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), which allowed countries to make claims to extended continental shelves. In accordance with UNCLOS, Russia submitted a claim to an extended continental shelf beyond its 200-mile (320 km) exclusive economic zone on December 20, 2001, to the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLCS). Russia claimed that two underwater mountain chains - the Lomonosov and Mendeleev ridges - within the Russian sector of the Arctic were extensions of the Eurasian continent and thus part of the Russian continental shelf. The UN CLCS neither validated nor invalidated the claim but requested Russia to submit additional data to substantiate its claim. Russia planned to submit additional data to the CLCS in 2012.
In August 2007, a Russian expedition named Arktika 2007, led by Artur Chilingarov, planted a Russian flag on the seabed at the North Pole. This was done in the course of scientific research to substantiate Russia's 2001 extended continental shelf claim submission. Rock, mud, water, and plant samples at the seabed were collected and brought back to Russia for scientific study. The Natural Resources Ministry of Russia announced that the bottom samples collected from the expedition are similar to those found on continental shelves. Russia is using this to substantiate its claim that the Lomonosov Ridge in its sector is a continuation of the continental shelf that extends from Russia, and that Russia has a legitimate claim to that seabed. The United States and Canada commented that the Russian flag planting was legally meaningless. Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov agreed, telling reporters: "The aim of this expedition is not to stake Russia's claim but to show that our shelf reaches to the North Pole." Russia plants flag on Arctic floor . CNN News. He also confirmed that Arctic territory issues "can be tackled solely on the basis of international law, the International Convention on the Law of the Sea and in the framework of the mechanisms that have in accordance with it been created for determining the borders of states which have a continental shelf." In another interview Sergey Lavrov said: "I was amazed by my Canadian counterpart’s statement that we are planting flags around. We’re not throwing flags around. We just do what other discoverers did. The purpose of the expedition is not to stake whatever rights of Russia, but to prove that our shelf extends to the North Pole. By the way the flag on the Moon, it was the same".
Foreign Ministers and other officials representing Canada, Denmark, Norway, Russia, and the United States met in Ilulissat, Greenland in May 2008, at the Arctic Ocean Conference and announced the Ilulissat Declaration. Among other things the declaration stated that any demarcation issues in the Arctic should be resolved on a bilateral basis between contesting parties.
An example of such bilateral agreement was achieved between Russia and Norway in 2010.
Military Part of Russia's current Arctic policy includes maintaining a military presence in the region. In 2014, the Northern Fleet Joint Strategic Command (Russia) was established. The Russian Northern Fleet, the largest of the four Russian Navy fleets, is headquartered in Severomorsk, in the Kola Gulf on the Barents Sea. The Northern Fleet encompasses two-thirds of Russia's total naval power, and has close to 80 operational ships. As of 2013, this included approximately 35 submarines, six missile cruisers, and the flagship Petr Velikiy (Peter the Great), a nuclear-powered guided missile cruiser. In 2012 the Russian Navy resumed naval patrols of the Northern Sea Route, marked by a 2,000 mile patrol of the Russian Arctic by ten ships led by an icebreaker and the Petr Velikiy. The Russian Military also reportedly announced in June 2008 that it would increase the operational radius of its Northern Fleet submarines.
The first nuclear icebreaker, the Lenin, began operating in the Northern Sea Route in July 1960. A total of ten nuclear-powered civilian vessels, including nine icebreakers, have been built in Russia. Three of these have been decommissioned, including the Lenin. Besides its six nuclear icebreakers, Russia also has 19 diesel polar icebreakers. Its nuclear icebreaker fleet includes the 50 Let Pobedy (50 Years of Victory), the largest nuclear icebreaker in the world. There are currently plans to build six more icebreakers, as well as plans to build a $33 billion year-round Arctic port. On September 28, 2011, President Medvedev lifted the ban on the privatization of the nuclear icebreaker fleet with decree No. 1256. This repeal will allow Atomflot, the state company that owns the fleet, to be at least partially owned by private investors. The government is expected to retain a controlling share in the company.
Russia says that it has military units specifically trained for Arctic combat. On October 4, 2010, Russian Navy commander Admiral Vladimir Vysotsky was quoted as saying: "We are observing the penetration of a host of states which . . . are advancing their interests very intensively, in every possible way, in particular China," and that Russia would "not give up a single inch" in the Arctic. Russian Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov announced plans on July 16, 2011, for the creation of two brigades that would be stationed in the Arctic. Russia's Arctic policy statement, approved by President Medvedev on September 18, 2008, called for the establishment of improved military forces in the Arctic to "ensure military security" in that region, as well as the strengthening of existing border guards in the area.
Research