Arctic geopolitics is on thin ice. As global temperatures rise and ice melts, Russia is seeking both economic growth and military power projection in the Arctic region, turning the climate crisis to its advantage.
EU data from January found the lowest-ever quantity of Arctic sea ice. Temperatures in the region are rising around four times faster than anywhere else in the world — a phenomenon known as Arctic amplification.
Russia owns 53% of the Arctic Ocean’s shoreline and regards the region as a vital strategic interest. In July 2022 it published its “Arctic Doctrine,” laying out its ambitions to become a “great maritime power” in the region and identifying NATO and the US as the main threats to its security. That ambition has deepened as its war in Ukraine has turned the Western world sharply against Russia.
For European powers, the melting ice opens up new trade routes and natural resources as well as a new theatre for military competition with Russia — while straining relations at the Arctic Council, which is trying to preserve the ecology of the region and native peoples’ way of life.
“The warming up of the Arctic has created a lot of new economic opportunities. We're speaking here about sectors which are of geostrategic importance,” Marie-Anne Coninsx, former EU ambassador at large for the Arctic, told The Parliament.
“Russia always has very key strategic interests in its Arctic for economic and strategic security reasons, but we see new developments now, like stronger Russia-China alliance in the Arctic, and also in the military field.”
Climate change unlocks Arctic resources
The Arctic is heating up fast. Arctic amplification means as sea ice melts, it reveals darker ocean waters that absorb more sunlight, which in turn accelerates the warming — and melting — all over again.
Melting sea ice has opened up strategic shipping routes. This includes the Northern Sea Route (NSR), a 5,600 kilometre stretch along Russia's Arctic coast connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. When not blocked by ice, it allows faster and cheaper passage between Europe and Asia. Since some of the NSR passes through Russian territorial waters, Moscow can control access to the route.
“The world has caused climate change and Russia has gotten lucky that they are in a geographic position as the largest Arctic state where they benefit from it the most,” said Malte Humpert, founder of The Arctic Institute, a US-based nonprofit.
Figures from 2024 published by the Arctic Council Working Group on the Protection of the Arctic Marine Environment (PAME) reported an increase of 37% in ship numbers and 111% in distance sailed in the Arctic over the past 10 years.
“It offers the possibility of shorter commercial routes, which implies profits of billions of dollars,” said Ionela Maria Ciolan, a research officer at the Wilfried Martens Centre for European Studies.
Other actors are spying opportunities, too. Last year, there were reports that China was building icebreaker ships, specialised vessels designed to navigate ice-covered waterways, signalling its growing interest in the region.
Melting ice has exposed previously inaccessible critical mineral deposits, including rare-earth elements vital to manufacturing advanced weaponry, cutting-edge computer chips and components of the green energy transition. It also contains natural minerals like nickel, platinum and palladium, as well as potentially massive reserves of oil and natural gas.
Russia has created a new venture, Vostok Oil, to capitalise on this windfall, with expected production of up to 2 million barrels per day by 2030 — equivalent to the entire North Sea oil output. Figures from the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies show the Russian oil and gas sector makes up around 20% of the country’s GDP.
In terms of liquified natural gas (LNG), Russia’s Yamal LNG project launched its commercial operations in 2017. While the EU placed new sanctions in May targeting three new-build LNG carriers under charter with Yamal, figures from the International Energy Institute and Financial Economics (IEEFA) estimate that the bloc increased its exports from Russia by 18% in 2024, spending around €6.3 billion on Russian LNG between January and November 2024.
Global Arctic tensions
Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in early 2022, the strategic element of Arctic navigation has gained new importance — and Russia has been building up its military capabilities since well before even the annexation of Crimea in 2014.
“For the moment, [the Arctic] helps to finance major parts of the Russian war machine against Ukraine,” says Coninsx. “But the Arctic is also key for Russian security, the Russian navy, and the core of Russian nuclear weapons are in the Arctic itself. And Russia, for example, is using the Barents Sea for research and development.”
Tensions could also emerge around Svalbard, a Norwegian archipelago in the Arctic known as NATO’s northern flank. Though owned by Norway, Russians have equal rights to live and work there, due to the 1920 Svalbard Treaty signed by the League of Nations. Russia is also the only country, other than Norway, with a town there.
Back in March, Russia accused the Norwegian government of militarising the territory with NATO, thus giving itself a pretext to ‘retaliate.’ It has also steadily increased its presence there in recent years, with some reports of navy ships hoisting Russian flags in the area last year.
Over the last two decades, Russia has been reopening some of its Soviet-era bases along its northern Arctic flank while also significantly increasing its military exercises in the region with China. It has also boosted its hybrid warfare operations, like cutting undersea communications cables.
And the Barents Sea, between Svalbard and northern Russia, plays host to frequent exercises for Russia’s nuclear submarines. “The shrinking ice cap gives ballistic missile submarines more space to manoeuvre undetected under thinner ice,” said Ciolan.
But melting ice also brings vulnerabilities for all sides. Fast-rising temperatures are creating problems for some infrastructure — including that of the US military — built on permafrost foundations, which are melting.
Growing interest from China also complicates matters. Back in 2018, the superpower declared itself a “near-Arctic state” despite having no geographical presence in the region. In cooperation with Russia, China has also developed its presence in the NSR, all while boosting its military exercises in the region.
“Russia right now is weak in the Arctic because of war in Ukraine,” Jon Rahbek-Clemmensen, associate professor at the department of Strategy at the Danish Defence Academy, told The Parliament. “NATO has a better ability to threaten some of Russia's key interests in the Arctic, and the general breakdown of regional governance also puts a lot of pressure on Russia.”
“And therefore Russia is turning towards China, and China is taking advantage of Russia's weakness,” he said.
Fractured Arctic Council governance
As Russia pushes forward, the institutions designed to preserve Arctic cooperation are faltering.
The Arctic Council — now chaired by Greenland, most recently by Norway — is struggling to maintain dialogue among its eight member states: Canada, Denmark (which includes Greenland and the Faroe Islands), Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, Sweden, and the US.
Since Russia’s launched its full-scale war in Ukraine, formal communication has broken down, limiting the Council's ability to represent the interests of indigenous peoples, study and preserve Arctic biodiversity, minimise pollution and respond to emergencies.
“The main challenge for our chair(man)ship of the Arctic Council was to deal with the consequences of Russia’s war against Ukraine. Norway stands firmly with our allies and partners in condemning Russia’s war,” Eivind Vad Petersson, State Secretary to Norway’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, told The Parliament in a written statement. “Normal cooperation with Russia in the Council is hence neither possible nor desirable.”
A patchy rapprochement between the US and Russia — the Council’s two biggest member states — under President Donald Trump has muddied the situation even further, alongside Trump’s continued threats to take Greenland by force.
“President Trump is quite unpredictable. There is a big question mark over the normalisation of the relations between the US and Russia, and what impact that might have on the Arctic Council,” said Coninsx. “It's struggling, I would say, for its survival.”
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