A sailor looks at the Russian missile cruiser Moskva moored in the Ukrainian Black Sea port of Sevastopol. REUTERS/Stringer
Suggestions that Moscow is considering charging Greenpeace activists with “piracy” demonstrate not only its deep suspicion of non-governmental organizations, but also its determination to assert its authority in the Arctic “High North.”
The environmentalist group had been refused official permission to enter the Kara Sea north of Siberia, but their ship sailed there anyway in late August to protest exploratory oil and gas drilling. When it approached Gazprom’s Prirazlomnaya platform in the Pechora Sea, armed Russian Naval Border Troops boarded the MV Arctic Sunrise by helicopter and seized the ship and its crew.
The Arctic Sunrise is presently being towed to Murmansk under guard. This is not an unusual fate for Greenpeace activists, even though they were in international waters (but inside Russia’s exclusive economic zone). However, on September 20, Russia’s powerful Investigations Committee disclosed that two activists who tried to board the rig might be charged with “maritime piracy” — an offense that carries a potential 15-year prison sentence.
This represents a dramatic upping of the ante and can be understood in two contexts. The first is a deep and growing suspicion of NGOs on the part of the Kremlin. President Vladimir Putin recently accused foreign NGOs of stirring up anti-Russian passions in the North Caucasus, for example, and since last year those bodies that receive financial support from abroad must officially describe themselves as “Foreign Agents.”
However, the move also reflects an increasing Russian assertiveness in the “High North.” Putin has made control of the Arctic a strategic priority, reflecting its growing importance as a source of oil and gas, as well as shipping lanes opened up by the shrinking of the ice cap. First Deputy Defense Minister Arkady Bakhin recently affirmed that “We have come, and we’ll stay there forever. This is the beginning of a big journey.”
Such rhetoric has been given form with a series of recent long-term initiatives. Long-range air and sea patrols have been stepped up, and most recently a squadron of ten warships led by the nuclear-powered missile cruiser Peter the Great accompanied four nuclear-powered ice breakers to the Novosibirsk Islands in a clear show of force. This month a Russian spy ship has also been tracking NATO exercises off Swedish waters for the first time since the end of the Cold War.
On September 15, defense ministry officials announced that a new, year-round airbase was to be erected in the New Siberian Islands Archipelago between the Laptev and East Siberian Seas. The facility, which is to be operational by November, will provide a base for long-range reconnaissance and transport aircraft. As Moscow also stands up specialized Arctic-warfare units along its northern coastline, it is clear that — as Greenpeace has discovered to its own peril — the Kremlin is staking an increasingly aggressive claim to being an Arctic power.
