The following sections examine the importance of the Arctic to Putin’s Russia. The first section looks at Soviet Arctic policy in historical perspective assessing the significance of the Arctic to Putin’s Russia. This section will focus briefly on key stages in the development of Arctic strategy under the Soviet Union, and Russian Arctic strategy under Yeltsin and Putin. The second section looks to the Arctic continental shelf dispute and positions Russia’s territorial claim within the contemporary debate.
4.2.1 Soviet Arctic policy2
In 1926, the Soviet Union claimed the entire Arctic area adjoining the polar coast. Figure 23 depicts the 1926 Soviet Arctic claim. Under the Soviet sectoral approach, the claimed territory was a large triangular area beginning at the Western border of the USSR, stretching to the centre of the Bering Strait with its apex at the North Pole.3 No
other country recognized the Soviet delineation. In addition, the Soviets acknowledged four other sectors belonging to Canada, Denmark, Norway and the US. When it came to the North Pole, the intersecting point of all 5 sectors, the leading Soviet authority on Arctic matters noted:4
As to the ownership of the North Pole, it should be remarked that the Pole is an intersection of meridian lines of the said five sectors. Neither legally nor in fact does it belong to any one. It might be represented as a hexahedral frontier post on the sides of which might be painted the national colours of the State of the corresponding sector.
2 For in-depth insight into Soviet Arctic policy see: Taracouzio, T, 1938. Soviets in the Arctic. New York:
The Macmillan Company
3 Radio Free Europe/ Radio Liberty. 2007. Russia: Race To The North Pole. Available at:
http://www.rferl.org/content/article/1077849.html. [Accessed 27 July 2016].
4 RAND Corporation. 1972. Territorial Waters in the Arctic: The Soviet Position. Available at:
Figure 23: Soviet sector claim to the Arctic5
The US, Denmark, and Norway did not recognize the 1926 claim or the sectoral claim principle in general. In 1925, Canada made a sector claim in the Arctic extending to the North Pole. Critics of the sector principle claim it has ‘no basis in international law’ whereas proponents of the principle claim their theory is simple to apply and follow.6
5 RAND Corporation. 1972. Territorial Waters in the Arctic: The Soviet Position. Available at:
http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/reports/2009/R907.pdf. [Accessed 27 July 2016].
As in other policy domains, Stalin was the most important figure in the evolution of official Soviet attitudes to the Arctic; arguably the Arctic received more attention from Stalin than from any other Soviet leader. Stalin saw clearly the strategic potential of the Arctic and personally involved himself in three signature Arctic projects during the 1930s—the White Sea Canal, development of Arctic aviation and the Northern Sea Route (NSR).7 Infamously, the Soviet Arctic also became home to extensive parts of
Stalin’s vast prison system, the GULAG. In 1932, the Soviet Union navigated the NSR. This event ‘transformed the Arctic and the state proved more than eager to take advantage of the public’s enthusiasm for things polar’.8
In a process that has been dubbed the ‘Stalinisation’ of Arctic exploration, Stalin greatly increased global attention to the Arctic region.9 Two key themes illustrate the
centrality of the Arctic Soviet policies and ideology under Stalin: First, the Arctic’s place in the modernisation and industrialisation agenda and second, the significance of the Arctic for Stalin’s propaganda campaign. The harshness of the Arctic environment and humanity’s battle with Arctic nature was a neat fit for communist propaganda.10 The
Soviet Union’s wide array of successful explorations into the Arctic region with limited means could be repackaged as communist propaganda celebrating the Soviet system’s unique capabilities. The Arctic became an important focus for propelling Soviet communist ideals. What emerged was the concept of the ‘Red Arctic’—a myth of popular Soviet culture epitomising the leadership of the Soviet Union in all matters Arctic. For Laruelle, the Arctic was presented as ‘the forepost of Soviet civilization’ which celebrated Stalin’s core values of patriotism, heroism, and the exceptional industrial capacities of socialism, as the Soviet Union appeared to conquer what was the world’s harshest environment.11
7 Emmerson, C, 2010.
8 McCannon, J, 1998. Red Arctic: Polar Exploration and the Myth of the North in the Soviet Union,
1932-1939. United Kingdom: Oxford University Press. Page 111.
9 Horensma, P, 1991. The Soviet Arctic. New York: Routledge. 10 Ibid.
The year 1932 saw the end of the first five-year plan of which the primary focus was the establishment of heavy industry and the collectivisation of agriculture.12 From
1933, the NSR underwent significant development, sparked by the extensive Soviet Arctic development plan. For Stalin, the Arctic was of crucial significance to the future economic bottom line of the Soviet Union:
The Arctic and our northern regions contain colossal wealth. We must create a Soviet organization which can, in the shortest period possible, include this wealth in the general resources of our socialist economic structure.13
After Stalin’s death, Soviet interest in the Arctic faded. The Far East presented itself as a more viable propaganda frontier and focus for the Soviet economy, and by the 1960s, the West Siberia oilfields were of central importance. But while in the post- Stalin period the Russia’s Arctic region lost some of its allure, at the same time, it was ‘neither rejected, nor exalted’.14 After Stalin, Soviet Arctic policy was driven primarily
by securitisation. At the height of the Cold War the Arctic was transformed into a strategic and military space marked by East-West tensions. As the Arctic sea route was the shortest distance between the two superpowers, with the development of ballistic missile technology, the Arctic became a Cold War theatre. Both superpowers built and deployed missile defence systems, further entrenching the region as a potential theatre for conflict. By the 1960s, intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) replaced bombers as the primary nuclear threat and with further development in the 1970s the stark fact was that the Arctic was the shortest distance between the US and Soviet Union. By 1980, the Arctic Ocean was the leading operational space for nuclear-
12 Armstrong, T, 2011. The Northern Sea Route: Soviet Exploration of the North East Passage. United
Kingdom: Cambridge University Press. Note: ‘Five-year plans’ refers to the series of centralized
economic plans for the Soviet Union.
13 Emmerson, C, 2010. 14 Laruelle, M, 2013. Page 69.
powered submarines from both superpowers. Towards the end of the 1980s the Arctic was viewed as the ‘strategic frontier’ in US-Soviet relations.15
Mikhail Gorbachev did much to shape Russia’s contemporary Arctic policy in his October 1987 Murmansk Initiative outlining the Soviet Union’s Arctic strategy.16 The
Murmansk Initiative was part of Gorbachev’s wider strategy to warm ties with the US.17 Both speeches were key components of Gorbachev’s overall perestroika and
glasnost reform programs. The Murmansk Initiative aimed at reducing the arms race and specifically in terms of the Arctic, to reduce the armed presence of both superpowers. Gorbachev envisioned the Arctic as a space for cooperation and as the first step in implementing a wider peace initiative. Gorbachev called for a nuclear-free zone, restrictions on naval military activities, cooperative resource development, coordinated scientific research, environmental cooperation, and the opening of the Northern Sea Route.18
Gorbachev argued that although the ‘international situation was still complicated’ there had been ‘some change’.19 Western leaders were continually branding Soviet
Arctic policy as ‘communist expansion’ and yet in reality, the sentiment was often ‘forgotten’ when it came to ‘businesslike political negotiations and contracts’ in the Arctic.20 In the Murmansk speech, Gorbachev particularly focused on the dangers of
rapid militarisation of the Arctic:
The militarization of this part of the world is assuming threatening dimensions. One cannot but feel concern over the fact that NATO, anticipating an agreement
15 The Atlantic Online. 1993. The Last Front of the Cold War. Available
at:http://www.theatlantic.com/past/politics/foreign/front.htm. [Accessed 27 July 2016].
16 Alaska Dispatch News. 2012. How Gorbachev shaped future Arctic policy 25 years ago. Available
at: http://www.adn.com/arctic/article/how-gorbachev-shaped-future-arctic-policy-25-years- ago/2012/10/01/. [Accessed 27 July 2016]
17 See similar initiatives such as his 1986 Vladivostok speech on the Asia Pacific. 18 The Atlantic Online. 1993.
19 Gorbachev, M, 1987. Speech in Murmansk at the Ceremonial Meeting on The Occasion of the
Presentation of the Order of Lenin and the Gold Star to the City of Murmansk. Available at: https://wwwbarentsinfo.fi/docs/Gorbachev_speech.pdf.
on medium- and shorter-range missiles being reached, is preparing to train military personnel in the use of sea- and air-based cruise missiles from the North Atlantic. This would mean an additional threat to us and to all the countries of Northern Europe. A new radar station, one of the Star Wars elements, has been made operational in Greenland in violation of the ABM Treaty. US cruise missiles are being tested in the north of Canada. The Canadian government has recently developed a vast programme for a build-up of forces in the Arctic. The US and NATO military activity in areas adjoining the Soviet Polar Region is being stepped up. The level of NATO's military presence in Norway and Denmark is being built up. Therefore, while in Murmansk, and standing on the threshold of the Arctic and the North Atlantic, I would like to invite, first of all, the countries of the region to a discussion on the burning security issues.21
Western distrust, even scepticism, initially made Gorbachev’s cooperation objective difficult to realise.22 However, in the case of Canada, Gorbachev’s policy encouraged
the Mulroney Government to engage with Russia in Canada’s first multilateral negotiations since the formation of the Soviet Union.23 Gorbachev’s cooperative
stance on the Arctic continued with Prime Minister Nikolai Ryzhkov visiting Norway and Sweden in 1988 to suggest reducing military exercises in the Arctic to every two years whilst also extending an invitation to both nations to attend Soviet Arctic exercises.24 Foreign Minister Shevardnadze’s Arctic arms control proposals at the 1989
conference on Arctic cooperation, in which he stated a ‘willingness to negotiate an agreement with the US on limiting the areas of test and combat’ in the Arctic, was further evidence of the Soviet Union’s cooperative approach to the Arctic.25 As
Gorbachev’s domestic and external reform program gathered momentum, Western
21 Ibid.
22 Lackenbauer, W, 2010. Mirror images? Canada, Russia and the circumpolar world. International
Journal, 65:4.
23 Ibid.
24 Axworthy, T, 2013. Changing the Arctic Paradigm From Cold War to Co-operation. Finland: Fifth
Polar Law Symposium. Available at:
http://gordonfoundation.ca/sites/default/files/publications/Changing%20the%20Arctic%20Paradigm %20from%20Cold%20War%20to%20Cooperation_Paper%20(FINAL)_0.pdf
25 Gizewski, P, 1993. Arctic Security After the Thaw: A Post-Cold War Assessment Report of the Panel
scepticism was replaced by a growing recognition that Gorbachev was a man they could ‘do business with’.26 Essentially, Gorbachev’s Murmansk Initiative was an
attempt to de-securitise state-to-state relations in the Arctic.
The fall of the Soviet Union did not reduce the cooperative atmosphere. Despite his personal rivalry with Gorbachev, the reformist leader of the Russian Federation, Boris Yeltsin continued his Soviet predecessor’s cooperative approach to the Arctic, at least in the early years. Against the backdrop of the fall of the Soviet Union, and coupled with the severe economic issues of the 1990s, Russia’s northern regions became largely forgotten. This posed issues for the inherited armed forces of the Soviet Union posted in Russia’s high north. During the early 1990s ‘Russia [did] not intend to eliminate entirely its armed forces in the North, but it [didn’t] know how many troops to keep’. This also affected the 1.2 million military-related civilians living in Russia’s Arctic region (areas north of the Arctic Circle).27
These economic difficulties did not, however, affect multilateral cooperation in the Arctic. Given the economic limitations, Yeltsin allocated a bare minimum of resources to the Arctic. This inevitably favoured the maintenance of a cooperative approach. Under Yeltsin, Canadian-Russian relations in the Arctic warmed as evidenced by their joint 1992 Declaration of Friendship and formal Arctic Cooperation Agreement. For Yeltsin, as he told a joint sitting of both houses of the Canadian parliament, it was the case that ‘only together can we solve all of the problems involving the Arctic’.28
Aspects of Gorbachev’s Murmansk Initiative survived the Union’s fall and helped Russia bring about the establishment of the Arctic Council in 1996.
26See Margaret Thatcher’s 1984 BBC quote: ‘I like Mr Gorbachev. We can do business together’. 27 The Atlantic Online, 1993.
28 Yeltsin, B, 1992. Boris Yeltsin to both Houses of Parliamentin Canada, Parliament, House of
A range of committees and working groups emerged in the years that followed the Murmansk Initiative. The International Arctic Science Committee (IASC) was founded in 1990 by the USSR, US, Canada, Norway, Iceland, Finland, Denmark and Sweden; today the IASC also includes some 15 non-Arctic states.29 Likewise, in 1990, the
International Arctic Social Sciences Association (IASSA) was founded following a meeting in Leningrad in 1988 on the coordination of research in the Arctic.30 The 1991
Finnish Initiative resulted in the Arctic Environment Protection Strategy signed by the USSR, US, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden. The Initiative aimed to ‘monitor, protect, and promote sustainable development in the Arctic region and recognize the rights of indigenous peoples in relation to environmental issues’.31
This was the forerunner to the Arctic Council, which was established five years later in 1996 through the Ottawa Declaration.32
Gorbachev’s Arctic legacy was above all to advance the cause of the region’s potential for cooperation. Certainly, if it were possible ‘to assign a date marking the beginning of the current era of circumpolar cooperation, October 1st 1987, is it’.33 Despite
Gorbachev seeking a ‘radical lowering of the level of military confrontation in the region’, the Soviets maintained their Arctic hardware at Cold War levels throughout Gorbachev’s leadership.34 Substantive Arctic demilitarisation was ushered in by Yeltsin
largely as a direct result of the fall of the Union in 1991. For Russia, the military presence was too costly to maintain, while for the US the threat of the Soviet Union was no more.
29 International Arctic Science Committee. 2016. IASC History. Available
at:http://iasc.info/iasc/history. [Accessed 27 July 2016]
30 International Arctic Science Committee . 2016. IASC Objectives . Available
at:http://iassa.org/about-iassa/objectives. [Accessed 27 July 2016].
31 Council on Foreign Relations. 1991. Arctic Environmental Protection Strategy. Available
at:http://www.cfr.org/world/arctic-environmental-protection-strategy/p20582. [Accessed 27 July 2016].
32 Arctic Council, 1996. Declaration on the establishment of the Arctic Council. Ottawa: Canada.
Available at: https://oaarchive.arctic-
council.org/bitstream/handle/11374/85/00_ottawa_decl_1996_signed%20%284%29.pdf?sequence= 1&isAllowed=y
33 Alaska Dispatch News, 2012. 34 Gorbachev, M, 1987.
A hangover of Soviet Arctic policy, with lasting effects for the contemporary Arctic, is the method by which the USSR decommissioned radioactive hazards. Utilised as a nuclear testing site, the Soviet Arctic was also routinely treated as somewhat of a nuclear waste-dumping site.35 Russia’s state nuclear organisation, Rosatom, reported
to then-President Medvedev in 2011 a catalogue of Soviet dumped waste. According to the report, there were some 17,000 containers of radioactive waste, 19 ships containing radioactive waste, 14 nuclear reactors, including five that still contained spent nuclear fuel, 735 other pieces of radioactively contaminated heavy machinery, and a K-27 nuclear submarine with its two reactors loaded with nuclear fuel, all dumped in the offshore Russian Arctic region.36 The clean-up task has been tackled by
a joint Russian-Norwegian taskforce, given that the majority of Soviet waste is in the Kara Sea region. Operations in 1992, 1993 and 1994 set a precedent for bilateral cooperation between Norway and Russia in this domain, and the clean-up is ongoing.37
4.2.2 The significance of the Arctic under Putin
The Arctic is by ‘no means a peripheral pursuit’ for Putin’s Russia, with the High North covering some 60% of Russian territory, 20% of Russia’s GDP and 22% of all Russian exports.38
Russia was one of the first Arctic states to develop an Arctic strategy with the drafting in 2001 of the Foundations of the State Policy of the Russian Federation in the Arctic. The final version of Russia’s Arctic strategy was developed in 2008 and approved by
35 Bellona. 2014. Russia, Norway urge raising of dumped Soviet-era nuclear subs. Available
at:http://bellona.org/news/nuclear-issues/2014-04-russia-norway-urge-raising-dumped-soviet-era- nuclear-subs. [Accessed 27 July 2016].
36 Bellona. 2012. Russia announces enormous finds of radioactive waste and nuclear reactors in Arctic
seas. Available at: http://bellona.org/news/nuclear-issues/radioactive-waste-and-spent-nuclear- fuel/2012-08-russia-announces-enormous-finds-of-radioactive-waste-and-nuclear-reactors-in-arctic- seas. [Accessed 27 July 2016].
37 Ibid. See for discussion of Nunn-Lugar program: https://armscontrolcenter.org/fact-sheet-the-
nunn-lugar-cooperative-threat-reduction-program/
38 Rowe, E & Blakkisrud, H, 2014. A New Kind of Arctic Power? Russia's Policy Discourses and
then-President Medvedev. The Medvedev presidency ushered in a period of a slightly more ‘softly-softly’ approach in foreign policy, and this was reflected in the 2008 Arctic policy document. Entitled Foundations of the State Policy of the Russian Federation in the Arctic to 2020 and Beyond, the strategy highlighted Russia’s national interests in the Arctic.
The strategy garnered global interest mainly because it followed the 2007 publicity stunt in which Russian explorers planted a Russian flag on the seabed of the North Pole. It outlines the national security interests of Russia in the Arctic as follows:
a) the utilisation of the Russian Federation's Arctic zone as a national strategic resource base capable of fulfilling the socio-economic tasks associated with national growth
b) the preservation of the Arctic as a zone of peace and cooperation c) the protection of the Arctic's unique ecological system and
d) the use of the North Sea passage as a unified transportation link connecting Russia to the Arctic.39
In terms of social and economic development objectives, the strategic priority in the Arctic is the ‘expansion of the resource base’. In the sphere of military security, the ‘defence and protection of the state border of the Russian Federation’ was seen as