Russia Sends Migrants to Finland & more – 28th Nov 2023

Góðan daginn from Keswick Village! This is Rorshok Arctic Update from the 28th of November twenty twenty-three A quick summary of what’s going down North of the Arctic Circle!

Let’s start with a dispute between Russia and Finland. On Friday the 24th, Finnish president Petteri Orpo said that “Russia must stop sending asylum seekers across its frontier into Finland in what amounts to a hybrid attack.” Finland has eight border control points on its Russian border. Last week, the Finnish government closed four of these, and on Friday the 24th, it closed another three. The only open border point is Finland’s northernmost one, Raja-Jooseppi, located in the Arctic region. In the last four weeks, the Russian government has been collecting over 800 asylum seekers from mainly Middle Eastern and African countries and delivering them to the Finnish border to overwhelm the Finnish migration systems. Since Russia knows when Finland turns migrants away, the country can accuse Finland of treating them poorly. However, The Kremlin has denied accusations from Finland that it is using vulnerable migrants as a tool to retaliate against the country joining NATO.

The city of Murmansk in Russia’s far north is Russia’s closest town to the Finnish border. The city authorities are trying to handle the migrant situation on the border. On Thursday the 23rd, Andrei Chibis, Murmansk Governor, announced that the situation has started to ease. Over 400 migrants had been camping at the Finnish border in the hope Finland would allow entry, but many of these migrants are now leaving the border to other countries or areas in Russia. Although the situation is easing, the governor criticized Finland’s response. Chibis described the incident as a humanitarian crisis and put full blame on Finland, saying on Wednesday the 22nd that Finland does not “show a human face.”

Continuing in Russia on Friday the 24th, the country’s parliament approved its twenty twenty-four state budget. The defense budget is set to increase by 25% to 37 trillion rubles, or over $400 billion US dollars. Russia has never spent a higher share of its economy on the military since the breakup of the Soviet Union. Included in this budget is a plan to build twelve nuclear submarines. Half of these will be deployed to Russia’s northern fleet, as the militarization of the Arctic Ocean continues.

Europe is advancing its own Arctic military operations along with Russia. Daniel Dwyer, NATO Commander for the Arctic, visited northern Norway on Wednesday, the 22nd. He then spent four days going over regional plans to develop Arctic military infrastructure and discuss the upcoming NATO military exercise set to take place in Northern Norway, Sweden, and Finland in March twenty twenty-four.

Military tensions in the Arctic were quiet for decades after the Cold War ended but have risen once again, and NATO has invested many resources into securing the region. For a breakdown of NATO’s Arctic agenda, the alliance has published an article entitled The Future of the High North. To read the piece, follow the link in the show notes.

Moving over to Alaska…

Late on Monday the 20th, a landslide fell onto the town of Wrangell during a heavy rainstorm. Approximately seventy-five homes are inaccessible, and there have been three confirmed deaths, with three people still missing. The declaration of an emergency on Wednesday, the 22nd, has allowed the public to receive temporary housing and access to emergency funds. State geologists have warned the risk of further landslides is high.

In better news from Alaska, on Tuesday the 21st, the Environmental Protection Agency announced they are giving around $2 billion US dollars to fund community-driven projects in clean energy and climate change resilience. An estimated $150 million of this funding has been allocated to projects benefiting native tribes in Alaska to address contaminated land, pollution reduction, and climate adaptation This funding boost has been aimed at helping underserved communities which have historically struggled to get funding from the federal government.

Alaska’s marine mammals are regularly encountering humans, unfortunately, with fatal results. According to a new report published by the US National Marine Fisheries Service on Thursday the 23rd, between twenty seventeen and twenty twenty-one there were over 800 human-mammal interactions in Alaska’s ocean. In over 700 of these, the animal died. The endangered Steller sea lions were the most frequently affected, with 476 interactions resulting in 429 deaths or serious injuries. Fishing gear and vessel strikes are the primary cause of injury or death.

Like most Nordic countries, Norway relies heavily on the fish industry for jobs and trade opportunities. Last year, the Fisheries Ministry cut the quota for cod in the country by 20% in an effort to protect the population of the valuable fish from collapsing. Unfortunately, the population of cod and other vital species have not recovered. On Tuesday the 21st, the Norwegian Institute of Marine Research announced that in twenty twenty-four the quota for cod will be reduced by another 20%.

Over to Iceland for an update on the predicted eruption. The town of Grindavik has been evacuated. But this week, the number of daily earthquakes dropped from approximately 800 to 400 a day, so the Civil Protection Authorities downgraded the emergency status from emergency to alert phase on Thursday, the 23rd. This allowed residents to return home for a few hours to collect their belongings. At a press conference on Friday the 24th, the Icelandic government warned that it would be months before the town is safe to return to permanently, since the threat of an eruption lingers.

Turning our attention to Greenland, where the transition to renewable energy has taken a big step. As reported by the newspaper Sermitsiaq on Wednesday the 22nd, the state budget for twenty twenty-four has allocated 400 million Danish Kroner, about $60 million US dollars, to a new state-owned company called Nunagreen. This company will expand hydropower plants in three major Greenlandic towns. Nunagreen used to be a state oil company called Nunaoil, but in the last year the executive restructured it into a renewable energy company. Greenland is investing huge amounts of money into transforming its national energy supply into a low-carbon, renewable system.

Returning to Russia, where from Wednesday the 22nd to Saturday the 25th, the Russian North Indigenous Youth Forum took place in the Siberian town of Salekhard. The gathering aimed to bring together young representatives from the many isolated Indigenous communities in Russia’s Arctic in order to facilitate knowledge and cultural exchanges. The forum brought together about 200 young people from different regions of Russia, as well as representatives of the Arctic Council, the Association of World Reindeer Herders, the International Center for Reindeer Husbandry, and other organizations.

In a first for the Arctic update, we go down south to India. At the India Nordic Baltic Business Conclave that took place on Wednesday the 22nd, the External Affairs Minister of India confirmed that the country is interested in increasing its participation in joint research and development projects and exploring rare earth mining in the Arctic. At the same event, Aksel Vilhelmson Johannesen, the Prime Minister of the Faroe Islands, said that he was keen to collaborate with India by allowing the country to use the Faroe Islands as a hub for Indian vessels which are exploring the Arctic Ocean. India is currently a small player in Arctic matters, but the country’s ambitions mean India is likely to become an important influence in the Arctic in the coming years.

Finally this week, the Arctic winter is long and dark. For the northernmost city of the US, the final sunrise of the year lit up the skies over Utqiagvik on Monday the 20th. Residents will not see the sun for another sixty-five days. When the sun returns to the city of 4,000 people, the community will celebrate the first sunrise with a festival of traditional dancing.

Aaaand that’s it for this week. Remember you can buy one of our really cool and environmentally friendly T-shirts! They are made of 100% unbleached organic cotton, grown and ginned in Texas, spun and knit in the Carolinas, and sewn and printed in Missouri. To buy one, follow the link in our show notes.

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