The 6th International Arctic Forum was held in Murmansk, Russia, on March 26-27, 2025. Andrei Kortunov, director of the Academic Committee of the Russian International Affairs Council, who has worked in the Arctic region, spoke in an interview with a Chinese newspaper about the strategic value of the Arctic region for Russia, as well as the problems and challenges related to it. And China? Beijing is watching and taking note. As usual.
Russia is a typical Nordic country. Its Arctic coastline is 24,000 kilometers long, and almost two-thirds of its land is covered by permafrost. Of all the Arctic countries, Russia has the largest number of permanent communities in the region, with a total population of more than two million, accounting for about half of the world's Arctic population. Murmansk, Vorkuta, Norilsk and other large cities north of the Arctic Circle are all located in Russia. For thousands of years, a major theme in Russian history has been the endless pursuit of furs, fish, timber, wastelands and new trade routes on the Arctic Ocean.
Historians still debate whether this continued drive northward was a blessing or a curse for Russia. The northward expansion provided a variety of unique opportunities, but also brought many challenges that had never been encountered before. Regardless, this movement had a profound impact on the formation of the Russian national character and left a deep mark on its national mentality. This legacy will undoubtedly accompany Russians into the future, affecting their self-perception, overall worldview, and many specific economic, social, military and other decisions.
Economy
Today, the Arctic is home to less than 1.3% of Russia's population, but accounts for 12% to 15% of its GDP and 25% of its exports. One-fifth of Russia's oil and three-quarters of its natural gas are mined here. The Arctic continental shelf, which has yet to be fully explored, contains even more oil and gas resources, at least 85 trillion cubic meters of natural gas and 17.3 billion tons of oil.
As many of the easily accessible oil and gas reserves on the continent are depleted, the only way for Russia to maintain its energy superpower status is to push north and use its offshore drilling capabilities in harsh climate and weather conditions. In addition to oil and gas, Russia's Arctic region also contains important mineral resources such as nickel, copper, iron ore, rare earth elements, platinum, palladium, etc.
However, deepwater drilling makes the extraction of hydrocarbons and other minerals expensive. For example, most offshore oil fields in the Arctic are only profitable when oil prices remain at $70 to $80 per barrel. As the global energy transition accelerates, it is unclear whether the international market can maintain long-term demand for Russian Arctic fossil fuels.
In addition, such deep-water drilling usually requires a lot of cutting-edge technology, which Russia does not always have. Moscow has long relied on Western countries such as the United States, Norway, Germany, and the United Kingdom to obtain these technologies, but today's geopolitical environment makes such cooperation impossible.
Now, Russia relies mainly on China to replace its former Western partners, but many Chinese energy companies have to act cautiously and even over-comply with Western restrictions on technology transfer to avoid secondary sanctions from the United States and the European Union.
Another obvious economic opportunity is the Northern Sea Route (NSR). This 5,600-kilometer transport corridor is the shortest shipping route between Europe and the Asia-Pacific region. As the Arctic ice melts and global warming lengthens the northern sailing season, the NSR is becoming increasingly commercially attractive.
Another supposed comparative advantage is that the Arctic route has no security risks similar to those of the Red Sea or Gulf of Aden, nor physical barriers like the Panama or Suez Canals to restrict cargo transportation.
Nevertheless, transforming the Arctic route into an important international shipping route still faces both technical and political obstacles. The waters north of Eurasia are mostly very shallow and cannot be used by large modern deep-draft container ships without expensive dredging. In addition, the infrastructure along the Arctic route is in urgent need of thorough modernization and further maintenance.
To complicate matters further, it is hard to imagine that EU countries will accept the Arctic route as the preferred shipping route from the Asia-Pacific region to Europe, after all, Russia is the main hub of this route. Therefore, in the future, the Arctic route is likely to be used mainly to meet Russia's domestic coastal transportation needs and to transport Siberian oil, coal and liquefied natural gas to China, India and other Asian markets.
If enough effort is made, the current annual shipping volume of nearly 40 million tons is expected to double by 2030, and may even reach 150 million tons per year in the future. However, compared with the Suez Canal, which handles 150 million tons of cargo per month, it is difficult for the Arctic route to compete with it.
Safety
The security significance of the Arctic region for Russia has two distinct aspects. First, such a long maritime border brings potential vulnerabilities that must be guarded against possible conventional violations. This may include not only the actions of hostile states, but also private poachers, human traffickers, etc.
Second, the Arctic provides Russia with its only unrestricted access to the high seas, which is vital for strategic naval forces as an integral part of the country’s nuclear triad; this access must be maintained at all costs to ensure the credibility of nuclear deterrence vis-à-vis the United States and its NATO allies.
In theory, conventional challenges to the Russian Arctic could come either from the east, from adversaries entering the region through the Bering Strait, or from the west, from NATO bases in the North Atlantic or from Norway.
Climate change and the continued melting of Arctic ice may increase Russia's security risks and lead to more frequent military activities in Arctic waters. Although recent changes in the defense posture of Japan, South Korea, and even Australia, which are more distant, are enough for Russia to pay close attention, it seems that Russia is not particularly worried about security challenges from the Asia-Pacific region.
The improvement of the West, especially NATO's naval power, poses a more pressing security threat to Russia, especially the accession of Finland and Sweden, and Norway's relaxation of restrictions on NATO's use of its northern coastline. As a country mainly based on land power, Russia is difficult to compete with NATO in large-scale conventional naval warfare, but its strategy may be to prevent NATO from entering Russia's Arctic region while ensuring the Russian Navy's safe passage in the North Atlantic.
The situation is different in the nuclear area. Russia’s Northern Fleet is the largest, most advanced, and most strategically important fleet in the Russian Navy. Its mission is not limited to the Arctic, but is explicitly global; the Northern Fleet should be able to operate in any remote corner of the globe to deter a nuclear attack on the Russian Federation.
The latest ballistic missile submarines, such as the Borei-class, and nuclear attack submarines, such as the Yasen-class, operate from Arctic bases, as do a number of surface warships, including Russia's only aircraft carrier, the Kuznetsov.
The choice of the Arctic as a key part of the country's strategic deterrent force was forced to some extent. The Black Sea and the Baltic Sea are both semi-enclosed seas, and the export is easy to be blocked, while Russia's free access to the Pacific Ocean is limited by the US military facilities in Japan, South Korea and Alaska.
Today, Russia has invested heavily in strengthening and modernizing its military presence in the Arctic, including restarting some old Soviet facilities that were decommissioned in the 1990s and building new search and rescue centers, deep-water ports, air force bases, and air defense missile complexes.
Nevertheless, these moves clearly reflect Russia's defensive military posture in the Arctic. Russia's conventional military forces in the region are insufficient, and it is neither confident that it can cut off NATO's communication lines in the North Atlantic nor tolerate NATO's long-term deployment of its navy in the Arctic. Avoiding a self-destructive naval arms race in the Arctic remains a big problem for Russia and its Western opponents.
Environmental and social issues
The Russian Arctic is warming three times faster than the global average. In some parts of this vast land, such as the northeastern corner of Eurasia, the pace of warming is even faster.
It is widely believed that global warming could bring new opportunities in agriculture, transportation, fisheries, and offshore oil and gas extraction to the region. Indeed, these opportunities may become reality.
However, the potential negative impacts of global warming on the Arctic cannot be underestimated, including increased coastal erosion, frequent natural disasters such as floods, and degradation of local ecosystems. The most significant negative impact of global warming on the region is the melting of permafrost, which is expected to affect at least two-thirds of infrastructure in the coming years, including houses, bridges, railways, roads, seaports and airports.
Accelerated sea level rise will also have a profound impact on the region, with the West Siberian Lowlands being particularly vulnerable, a vast expanse of land that could eventually become a seabed. Unable to stop global warming alone, Russia has adopted climate change adaptation policies, including enhanced permafrost monitoring, new building standards, more wildlife sanctuaries for endangered species, and reductions in black carbon emissions.
In addition to the pressure of climate change, Russia also has to face many social problems in the Arctic. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the population of the entire Arctic region has continued to decline. Although the population decreases by less than 20,000 people each year, the impact on the already small Arctic communities is quite significant.
Wages in the Arctic are generally higher than the Russian average, but the cost of living is also higher than in the south. Long, cold winters, biting winds and a generally uninhabitable environment are not very attractive for people to settle there. The federal government is responding to these problems by providing low-cost mortgages, investing in public transportation and the health system, supporting local universities and subsidizing regional social and cultural life.
Whether the Russian leadership can sustain these initiatives over the long term, and whether economic activity in the Arctic can expand beyond traditional sectors such as mineral extraction, fisheries, and transport, will be decisive for the future development of the Arctic.
Like many other Arctic nations, Russia faces challenges in dealing with the Indigenous communities of the North, which total about 250,000 people and represent at least four dozen different ethnic groups.
Climate change is just one of the issues these communities are now facing. While climate change has affected animal migration patterns, disrupted traditional livelihoods such as reindeer herding and fishing, and flooded some villages, threatening traditional ways of life, even without taking global warming into account, oil and gas exploration and other large-scale mineral extraction projects often lead to pollution and force indigenous peoples off their ancestral lands.
At the same time, the wide distribution of indigenous peoples makes it difficult for them to access health, education and legal services. In modern business and the rapidly changing public sector, it is not easy to combine traditional cultural and social customs with a successful career.
There are no quick fixes to solving the problems of indigenous peoples. However, existing experience in Russia and abroad shows that these problems can be significantly alleviated through the implementation of a range of economic, administrative, legal and social measures. These actions should include the participation of indigenous peoples’ representatives in local self-government bodies, shifting economic modernization programs from extensive growth to sustainable development, establishing resilient public-private partnerships with local non-governmental organizations, establishing systems to assess the impact of climate change on indigenous communities, and involving them in environmental monitoring.
Source: Guancha
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