Between 2014 and 2019, Russia put up roughly 500 military assets across its Arctic territory, covering more than 710,000 square meters. The International Centre for Defence and Security tallied the work in a 2019 study. The defense ministry’s own count, quoted there, was “475 facilities” at four sites over six years.
Those sites are far-flung. Kotelny Island in the Novosibirsk Islands has more than 250 buildings and structures at the Temp base. Alexandra Land in Franz Josef Land holds 89 at Nagurskoe. Wrangel Island and Cape Schmidt account for 85 between them.
A fleet built around Murmansk
The command structure came first. Vladimir Putin set up the Northern Fleet Joint Strategic Command in Murmansk in 2014 to run all military activity in the region. It draws on nuclear submarines, surface ships, air units and ground troops. By April 2019 the defense minister said the fleet would “receive 368 of the latest weapons and military equipment,” and that 59% of Russia’s modern arsenal was expected to be there by year’s end.
A CSIS brief published in January 2021 put the nuclear dimension in numbers: “over 80 percent of its sea-based nuclear deterrent” sits along the Kola Peninsula. The analysts also noted that Russia had resumed operations at Soviet-era bases, deployed advanced air defense systems and run large drills, among them Grom-2019, which involved “tactical and strategic nuclear forces.” They saw an imbalance in what is at stake. Russia draws 15-20% of its economy from Arctic resources, while the Arctic accounts for only 0.3% of annual U.S. GDP. Matching Moscow’s military presence, the authors wrote, “may not be realistic.”
The council that stopped meeting
The Arctic Council, created in 1996 through the Ottawa Declaration, has eight member states: Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, Sweden and the United States. Its official site calls it “the leading intergovernmental forum” for cooperation on Arctic questions, with six Indigenous organizations holding permanent participant status.
In early March 2022 the seven Western members suspended its activities after Russia invaded Ukraine, High North News reported. Russia held the chairmanship at the time. Its Arctic ambassador, Nikolay Korchunov, said the work “should be resumed in full as soon as possible,” while hinting that Finland’s and Sweden’s NATO applications might lead to “adjustments” in northern cooperation. Researchers quoted by the outlet doubted the Arctic would split permanently into two blocs.
Who owns the Northwest Passage
The legal fight over the route through the Canadian archipelago predates all of this. Canada treats the Northwest Passage as internal waters under its full sovereignty, resting on straight baselines and historic title. The United States calls it an international strait, which would let any ship, military vessels included, pass without asking Ottawa.
Neither has moved. A 1988 agreement is described by Astrid Arzu of the Georgetown Journal of International Law as “an agreement to disagree”: Washington promised to seek Canadian consent for icebreaker transits and conceded nothing on the legal question. In August 2020 a New Zealand pleasure craft sailed the passage without explicit Canadian permission, the first to rely on innocent passage “in defiance of Canadian authority.”
Sources
- Russia's Military Capabilities in the Arctic (Nurlan Aliyev, International Centre for Defence and Security)
- Arctic strategic dynamics (CSIS analysis)
- Arctic Council Paused Following Russia's Ukraine Invasion (High North News)
- The Arctic Council (official site)
- Agree to Disagree: Revisiting the Legal Status of Canada's Northwest Passage Claim (Astrid Arzu, Georgetown Journal of International Law)
