Arctic Council Must Include Russian Indigenous Leaders Now in Exile or It will Be Allowing Moscow to Play an Undeserved Role, Activists Say

Paul Goble

    Staunton, May 11 – As the chairmanship of the Arctic Council passes from Norway to Denmark, leaders of the numerically small peoples of the Russian North who’ve been forced into exile, are calling on the Council to include their groups to be included in expert meetings the Arctic Council regularly assembles.

    If that doesn’t happen and the Council continues to rely on ethnic organizations from the Russian Federation, they say, Moscow will be given an undeserved place in Council activities from which it has been otherwise suspended given Moscow’s control over these institutions (thebarentsobserver.com/news/call-for-arctic-council-to-include-russian-indigenous-groups-in-exile-in-working-groups/429604).

    At least some of the countries on the Arctic Council are sympathetic to this appeal and are likely to act on it. But others may see it as threatening east-west conversations by threatening understandings about who can play a role in these meetings that have been followed more or less consistently in the past.

    More than that, however, this case is a reminder of why it is so critical to follow what the Kremlin is doing in the NGO area because often Russian NGOs continue to be treated as genuine even when Western governments recognize Russian officialdom as a danger and take actions against it.

    Indeed, the handling of Russian NGOs is the latest update of the Cold War-era lament by some in the West that Moscow sends us spies and we treat them like diplomats while we send them diplomats and they treat them like spies.