Arctic is More than the Ocean and Moscow’s Approach Must be More than Building Atomic Icebreakers, Eidelman Says

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Feb. 9 – If you listen to Vladimir Putin, you might think that the Arctic is only the ocean and atomic icebreakers are the only tool to master all of it, Tamara Eidelman says. But the Arctic includes a vast land area in Russia and atomic icebreakers are not only costly but ineffective in dealing either with the sea or the land involved.  
    The Kremlin leader repeatedly talks about the natural resources on the floor of the Arctic Sea and about the Northern Sea Route and stresses that Russia’s nine icebreakers are making it possible for Russia to dominate this sea, the Russian commentator says (tamara-eidelman.com/p/razgovory-o-vazhnom-arktika-territoriya-razvitiya  reposted at kasparov.ru/material.php?id=67A8F3ADA3E6B).
    But Putin says almost nothing about the fact that the atomic icebreakers cost far more than they contributor and nearly nothing at all about the peoples who live in the Russian North, some for centuries and others because they were and continue to be dispatched there as prisoners of the state.
    Tragically because what Putin says determines what the Russian media and educational establishment communicate, many people assume he is right both in what he stresses and what he ignores. But those few who have looked more closely know he is wrong on both counts, Eidelman continues.
    One of the best ways to learn about the realities of the Russian North is to watch some of the remarkable films such as “Vorkuta. Hostages of the North” that have been shot about it over the years, and another is to turn to the special course prepared by the Arzamas portal (arzamas.academy/courses/76).
    Unless Russians and others learn the truth about the North, the world is at great risk of having ever more atomic icebreakers but losing both the Arctic Ocean and the lands around that sea as a result of environmental degradation and the destruction of the human communities there, Eidman concludes.