ARCTIC: Russia's broken promise

Goddag daginn from Keswick Village! This is the Rorshok Arctic Update from the 30th of July twenty twenty-four. A quick summary of what’s going down North of the Arctic Circle!

The next stage of military activity in the Arctic is beginning this week. On Monday the 22nd, the US Department of Defense published its new Arctic Strategy. In this document, the US has highlighted the alliance between Russia and China as its greatest threat to Arctic security, while acknowledging the need for greater cooperation with its allies in the Arctic. According to the strategy, the US will increase its presence across the Arctic with increased numbers of soldiers, exercises, and equipment. The militarization of the Arctic shows no signs of slowing down.

The Russian government responded to this report on Tuesday the 23rd, stating in a press release that Russia’s cooperation with China is not an aggressive move against other countries, but just an act of stability between the two nations. Dmitry Peskov, a Kremlin spokesman, said that Russia intends to foster only peace in the Arctic and his government believes the alliance with China will create prosperity for all Arctic nations.

That statement from Russia was quickly rendered meaningless when on Wednesday the 24th, the North American Aerospace Defense Command released a statement that it had deployed fighter jets to intercept and deter a group of Russian and Chinese nuclear-capable bombers that had entered the Alaskan Air Defense Zone. A combination of Canadian and US aircraft were sent to remove the threat showing that the alliance between China and Russia will need to contend with the old partnership of the US and Canada if it wishes to establish dominance in the north.

Finland has also had its borders tested by the Russian military this week. On Friday the 26th, according to a statement from the Finnish defense ministry, a Russian navy vessel from the Baltic Sea fleet entered the eastern Gulf of Finland and needed to be escorted out of Finnish territory by a coast guard vessel. This comes after four Russian military aircraft violated Finland’s airspace last month. Since Finland joined NATO in twenty twenty-three, the relationship between the two countries has soured as Russia continues to test the defenses of neighboring Finland.

Yet Finland isn’t looking to cooperate with other Nordic nations as it finds itself with a newly aggressive neighbor. On Thursday the 25th, Elina Valtonen, the Foreign Minister, told the Finnish Parliament that the government is considering withdrawing from the Barents cooperation in twenty twenty-four. The Barents cooperation is an agreement between Finland, Sweden, and Norway to work toward shared goals. However, Finland is implementing heavy budget cuts and views the Barents cooperation as an unnecessary expense. Valtonen emphasized that while Finland wishes to maintain collaboration with Nordic nations, it aims to shift funding from foreign assistance to domestic investment.

Finland is trying to save money but Canada’s government is about to lose billions in a landmark legal case. On Friday the 26th, Canada’s supreme court issued a unanimous ruling on an agreement made over 170 years ago between the federal government and its Indigenous communities. The agreement was supposed to see Canada share in the wealth created by exploiting the natural resources of Indigenous lands, but the Supreme Court ruled that Canada’s government has made a mockery of the deal and owes its First Nations up to $100 billion US dollars as fair compensation. The court has allowed for six months for the affected parties to reach a new compensation agreement, meaning the lives of Indigenous people in Canada may be about to radically change in twenty twenty-four.

Indigenous life in Canada is getting better for those in the Nunavik region too. The small, remote communities in Canada’s north have often struggled with internet access, relying on expensive and slow satellite broadband connections. But on Monday the 22nd, the Canadian Telecommunications Commission announced it would be giving about $250 million US dollars to the regional government to connect nine Nunavik communities to fiber optic internet. The work is expected to take three years but once completed, all of Nunavik’s coastal villages will have a reliable internet connection at an affordable cost.

The Indigenous elections in Finland were thought to be over after a year of controversies but the difficulties continue. The Sami Parliament was forced by the Finnish government to rerun its election with sixty-five excluded voters returned to the electoral register. The election was held last month and on Monday the 22nd, the Sami parliament revealed it has received twenty-two complaints over the new election. The Parliament has promised to resolve the complaints by the end of the year, but it is possible another election will need to be held if the objections are significant enough.

Life for Arctic animals is not getting any better though. On Tuesday the 23rd, the Norwegian Research Council spoke with Polar Journal, the news agency, about an ambitious project that is investigating why Arctic animals in Svalbard and Norway have been suffering from heavy metal pollution. The Metallica project believes that glaciers have been crushing rocks into fine particles, which separates the rock from any metals inside it. Glaciers are now quickly melting and these heavy metal particles are flowing into rivers and lakes, which then enter the food chain. The study is still ongoing but if the hypothesis is correct, a modern mystery about metal pollution will have an answer.

The most famous Arctic animal, the polar bear, had some big news. The Polar Bear Specialist Group, the most important scientific body for the animal, had a meeting on Wednesday the 24th and revealed a new population of polar bears has been identified in Greenland. This small population in southwest Greenland has been identified as one of the most genetically and behaviorally distinct groups of polar bears ever found, avoiding hunting on sea ice and instead finding food in freshwater fjords. They are so isolated they cannot breed with other polar bears and they behave in such a unique way that in time, this population may evolve into a whole new species of bear. This finding takes the number of distinct polar bear populations up to twenty worldwide and shows us there is still so much to learn in the vast, remote Arctic.

That wasn’t the only surprising discovery in Greenland. In research published on Friday the 26th by Sweden’s Uppsala University, scientists have discovered a hidden microcontinent in the Arctic between Canada and Greenland. The microcontinent is still loosely attached to Greenland’s sea bed but is stuck far below the sea and surrounded by its own oceanic crust. The report acknowledges a lot more research needs to be done to understand exactly how this microcontinent formed and how its existence might impact the geology of the whole region. The Arctic is so mysterious that even a new continent might be discovered.

Wanna see the first images of this new discovery? The link is in the show notes!

Far under the sea, all is not well in the Arctic though. On Friday the 26th, Greenpeace announced they had launched a scientific expedition to the areas where Norway is planning to begin deep sea mining. Greenpeace intends to learn more about the whales and dolphins that live in this part of the Norwegian Sea in order to more fully understand how they will be impacted by the controversial deep-sea mining.

The expedition hopes to provide valuable scientific data to the movement to prevent deep-sea mining. A statement against deep-sea mining has received the backing of more than 800 marine scientists. The link to this statement and the argument behind banning deep-sea mining is in the show notes.

Let’s finish off with some good news. In Alaska’s northernmost city, Utqiagvik, a baby walrus was rescued by the Alaska SeaLife Center which announced their newest resident on Thursday the 25th. While it isn’t known why the walrus’s mother left the calf, the wildlife rehabilitation nonprofit described the few weeks old mammal as alert and sassy as they work to raise the walrus under their care for the next two years before releasing a hopefully healthy adult back into the Arctic Ocean.

Aaand that’s it for this week! Thank you for joining us!

Do you know that besides the Arctic Update, we also do others? Our latest ones are the Ocean Update, about the 70% of the earth covered in salt water, and the Multilateral Update about all the world's major multilateral institutions. The other ones are all country updates, we have a selection of countries from Africa, Asia, South America, and Europe. Check roroshok.com/updates to see the full list and find the link in the shownotes as well.

Ha Det!