Moscow Cuts Spending on Promotion of Arctic Cooperation by More than 95 Percent

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Sept. 30 – It is a measure of Moscow’s isolation in the Arctic that the Russian government has allocated only 50 million rubles (500,000 US dollars) to promoting international cooperation in the Russian Arctic next year, down from two billion rubles (20 million US dollars) in 2023, a decline of more than 95 percent.

            These funds supported programs to attract foreign attention to the Arctic and Russian North and to cause at least some of those to invest in these regions. But Russia’s exit from various Arctic cooperation bodies and its isolation as a result of Western actions in others means there is little this money can be usefully spent in this way (akcent.site/novosti/25535).

            Whether the money saved will be redirected to Russian projects to develop infrastructure in the north or more likely used to prosecute Putin’s war in Ukraine is uncertain, but the mere fact that Moscow is acknowledging its isolation in this way says that many of its plans for the north are now being placed on hold.