Paul Goble
Staunton, July 4 – Since Gorbachev’s times, both Moscow and the West have accepted the idea of “Arctic exceptionalism,” the notion that the far north must be demilitarized and explored and economically developed only in a coordinated way. But now support for that idea is coming to an end in both places, Nail Farkhatdinov says.
This led to the development of institutions like the Arctic Council, The Moscow Times writer says; but now both Moscow and the West in response are acting in ways that violate both the letter of the agreements that led to their rise and more important to the spirit of such “exceptionalism” (moscowtimes.ru/2025/07/04/temnaya-arkticheskaya-politika-a168007).
That has led to the militarization of the region, the destruction of its fragile environment through untrammeled economic development, and threats to the survival of the numerically small peoples there, Farkhatdinov says. It has also raised the possibility that similar arrangements about the Antarctic will collapse along with other forms of cooperation.
Lying behind all of this, the writer continues, is the replacement of Arctic exceptionalism with what might be called “the dark Arctic,” an arrangement in which decisions are taken without transparency or unilaterally by one side or the other, often by its security forces and agencies rather than diplomats.
In the case of Russia, the lead organization of the Dark Arctic is the Naval Collegium under the hardline leadership of Nikolay Patrushev, a former director of the FSB and the former secretary of the Russian Security Council, who since last year has taken steps to end Arctic exceptionalism and allow for Russian expansion of all kinds there.
In doing so, Farkhatdinov says, Patrushev has built on a trend that some investigators say began “at a minimum” about 15 years ago and shows no signs of easing up anytime soon.
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