Russia Claims Total Military Superiority in the Arctic
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By Pavel Felgenhauer
March 18, 2019
The steady and costly buildup of military might in the Arctic has apparently reached a level sufficient for Russia to claim sovereign rights over international waters along the entire length of the Northern Sea Route (known in Russian as Sevmorput), from the Barents Sea in the west to Alaska and the Bering Strait in the east. Deputy Prime Minister Yury Borisov told journalists, “This territory [the Arctic] is within the sphere of Russian interests. We will not give it away or let it slip away,†despite Washington’s claims that these are international waters (Militarynews.ru, March 3). According to the pro-Kremlin daily Izvestia, the Russian government has approved a draft document requiring “foreign navies [to] post a request with Russian authorities to pass through the Sevmorput 45 days in advance, providing detailed technical information about the ship, its crew and destination.†Moscow may allow or ban any such request, as it sees fit; and Russian maritime pilots must be present aboard foreign naval ships while they are within Sevmorput waters. Russia reserves the right to use military force to defend its sovereign rights, to arrest intruder ships, or to sink and destroy them. Long-range missile-carrying naval ships potentially threaten vital Russian strategic targets while in the Sevmorput and may also cause ecological damage. The fact that Sevmorput waters partially lie outside Russia’s 12-nautical-mile territorial waters limit is seen by Moscow as insignificant. The Sevmorput is a Russian national treasure that must be protected (Izvestia, March 6).
https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2019/03/18/russia_claims_total_military_superiority_in_the_arctic_114264.html
