The CBC recently published a piece on Russia’s long interest in the Arctic, which is growing day by day as ice melts, and both land and sea energy resources are exposed. Unlike the more recent interest in the Arctic from other international powers, such as China, Russia has been at it for a while now, beginning under Joseph Stalin, who used the brutal gulag system to spur development of the country’s Arctic north. According to Wilson Rowe of the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs in Oslo, “Russia’s policy goal is for the Arctic to become its primary resource base by 2020.”

Worth a read.