Confrontation is unfolding in the Arctic, says Navy Commander

Admiral Aleksandr Moiseev knows the Arctic well. He sailed ballistic missile submarines under the ice-cap in the 1990s and served as chief of the Northern Fleet for a five-year period until he in March this year was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Russian navy.

This week, the high-ranking Admiral spoke at the Arctic forum conference in St. Petersburg, an bi-annual venue where Russian officials for years have highlighted that there are no questions in the Arctic that need military solutions.

“In addition to political and economic measures to contain Russia in the Arctic, unfriendly states are increasing their military presence in the region,” Moiseev said, pointing the re-establishing of the U.S. Second Fleet tasked for operations across the North Atlantic.

NATO’s Joint Command Norfolk is another concern for Admiral Moiseev, who said the Arctic now has become “an operation zone with permanent presence of troops” of NATO.

The navy commander did not mention that is was Russia that after 2012 started to rearm the Arctic with new military bases and airfields at Franz Josef Land, Novaya Zemlya, and a massive buildup of the Northern Fleet along the Kola Peninsula.

“Today, the Arctic is one of the key regions where the confrontation of the world’s leading states is unfolding,” Moiseev said during the panel debate in St. Petersburg according to state-controlled information agency TASS. 

“The military-political situation in the region is characterised by an increase in conflict potential associated with the intensification of rivalry between leading states for access to the resources of the Arctic Ocean, as well as the establishment of control over strategic sea and air communications.”

Again, the only nation that has questioned the freedom of navigation in Arctic waters is Russia, who wants to limit other nations ability to sail the international recognised waters of the Northern Sea Route.

Aleksandr Moiseev added that tensions are increasing also because the collective West puts hinder to Russia’s economic activity in the region.

The Admiral could have noted that economical sanctions targeting Russia’s Arctic exploration first came after the country launched its war on Ukraine and annexed Crimea in 2014. He didn’t. 

Simultaneously as the navy commander talked security of Russia’s north, his compatriots in Severomorsk on the Barents Sea coast launched a training exercise to combat unmanned boat, drones and other robotic systems.

During the drill, methods of defending the naval bases and organising counteractions were practiced, including the use of advanced electronic warfare systems, the Northern Fleet press service informed. 

Moiseev, who before 2019 was commander of the Black Sea fleet, has first hand knowledge of how Ukrainian forces have sunken multiple of his warships off the coast of Sevastopol and Novorossiysk.