The myth about the Arctic as the ultimate “treasure chest” of natural resources still has plenty of spin in the Russian political discourse, but reasonable assessments, like this article in Nezavisimaya gazeta, do appear. They are confirmed by the fact that Gazprom has in fact cut down the production on its newly-opened Bovanenkovskoe fields on… Read more »

The Barents Observer, which is a very good source on Arctic matters, has brought to my attention an article in Voenno-Promyshelly Kuryer on the problems and delays with the nuclear submarine Severodvinsk. The keel of this first sub in Yasen class was laid back in 1993, but the sea trials that started in 2011 have revealed… Read more »

When I wrote the post about Zhirinivsky last week, I thought the issue could not get more bizarre – and was proven wrong. Yes, it can – and President Putin himself took care of that. He lashed against Sergei Medvedev with such passion that it is plain clear – the idea about putting environment first… Read more »

A remarkably bizzare twist to the Arctic tale: My good friend Sergei Medvedev posted a comment to a blog post, in which he argued that Soviet and Russian “conquest” of the Arctic had inflicted so much damage to the environment that all economic activity in the High North should be banned and a UN monitoring… Read more »