As is often the case, much of the Western coverage of the launch of Russia’s new nuclear-powered icebreaker, the Arktika, has relied heavily on Kremlin press releases, with little to no examination of the actual situation. The vessel is the world’s largest of its type... MORE

*To read Part One, please click here.   Between late July and August 31, forces from Russia’s Northern, Black Sea, Pacific and Baltic fleets took part in the large-scale Ocean Shield 2020 naval military exercises, subsequently held in the western and then northeastern theaters (Portnews.ru,... MORE

Between August 3 and 31, forces from the four Russian fleets—Northern, Pacific, Black and Baltic—took part in the country’s annual “Ocean Shield” large-scale naval military exercises. Supervised by the Military-Maritime Fleet’s (Voyenno-Morskoy Flot—VMF) commander-in-chief, Admiral Nikolai Yevmenov, Ocean Shield 2020 involved a broad range of... MORE

In mid-July, China dispatched its Snow Dragon-2 icebreaker to the Northern Sea Route (NSR). This action marks yet another step toward realizing Beijing’s longstanding plans to displace Moscow as the dominant power in the Arctic as well as to establish Chinese preeminence on that east-west... MORE

On July 6, the Russian shipbuilding complex Zvezda, LLC started construction on a Project 10510 (Lider) icebreaker. Upon its completion (scheduled for 2027), the first ship of this class, named the Rossiya and commissioned by the Rosatom State Nuclear Energy Corporation (Rosatom), will become the... MORE

*To read Part One, please click here.   A disastrous fuel spill at the CHPP-3 combined heat and power plant in Norilsk (owned and operated by the Norilsk Nickel Group) has resulted in massive contamination of the local environment and will likely incur huge financial... MORE

On May 29, the Norilsk-based CHPP-3 combined heat and power plant, owned by the Norilsk-Taimyr Energy Company (a member of the Norilsk Nickel Group conglomerate), suffered the loss of a diesel fuel tank, resulting in a spill of approximately 21,000 tons of fuel. The disaster,... MORE

For more than a decade, Vladimir Putin has made the development of the Northern Sea Route as well as the broader Arctic littoral and seabed a focus of his national policies. And over this period, coverage of this effort has almost invariably followed the same... MORE

Almost 20 years ago, novelist John Griesemer’s dystopian book, Nobody Thinks of Greenland, captured the dominant attitude of most of his fellow Americans about the world’s largest island abutting the Arctic Sea. But that viewpoint, which truthfully was never completely true, changed dramatically in August... MORE

*To read Part One, please click here.   While China remains the most active player among non-Arctic nations, other Asian actors, such as India (see Part One in EDM, May 7) and Japan (the world`s third largest economy) are playing an increasingly visible role in... MORE