“It is in Alaska and in the Arctic where they converge economic interests of our countries and where the opportunity arises to implement mutually beneficial projects on a large scale,” he said in August Yuri Ushakovthe main advisor of the Kremlin in foreign policy and one of the key men in the talks with the United States on Ukraine. Donald Trump y Vladimir Putin were about to meet in Alaska and, as happened before in Riyadh, the joint business projects in the Arctic They were waiting on the table. That parallel channel in negotiations has gone largely unnoticed, but could be decisive for the future of ukraine and the european security. Moscow has been tempting the White House for months with juicy opportunities in gas, oil, critical minerals o transport in the Arctic. He knows that Trump’s foreign policy is transactional. And great businesses, the shortest way to win over the tycoon.
This strategy serves the Kremlin to pursue several of its objectives. Everything is very interconnected: the negotiation in Ukraine, the sanctions Westerners, the future of russian economy. And, of course, the Arctic, Putin’s latest obsession, comparable only to his ambitions to give Russia back its great power status subjecting the countries of what he considers his sphere of influence. He global warming It is advancing in the Great North four times faster than the average on the planet. A thaw that is opening up immense opportunities. From new sea routes a huge resources to exploit. Y Russia It is better positioned than its riverside neighbors, all of them western. Theirs are more than half of the Arctic coasts, from which a substantial part of their wealth comes, and the world’s largest fleet of icebreaking ships.
“It is in the regions of Far East and the Arctic where it resides “the future of Russia”Putin said in 2022, shortly after the sanctions imposed by the invasion of ukraine They began to close the European market. Putin ordered his people to “accelerate as much as possible” economic and military projects in the region. This summer he repeated it again: “It is now clear that Russia’s future lies in “Arctic development”. The Russian despot is not alone in his interest in that New Worldalso militarized at forced marches. Trump has stopped prioritizing scientific research in the region, to promote his military and economic dimension. It has made public its ambitions for Greenland and has opened vast tracts of land to the exploitation of hydrocarbons, rare earths and critical minerals, on which it relies heavily. China.
Russian hooks
The Kremlin is trying to take advantage of it. Already after the meeting in Riyadh in February, theoretically about Ukraine, one of the Kremlin negotiators confirmed that specific areas of cooperation were also addressed. “It was a broad discussion about possible projects in the Arctic”said Kirill Dimitrievalso head of the Russian sovereign wealth fund. Later in Alaska, the possibility of the US purchasing Russian nuclear-powered icebreakersas reported by Reuters. Or the return of the oil company Exxon Mobil to Russia, where it had a 30% stake in the hydrocarbon exploitation project until 2022 Shajalin-1located in the subarctic areas of the Russian Far East. That same day, Putin signed a decree authorizing foreign investors to recover their shares in Shakhalin-1 under certain conditions.
But there is more, in October, Dimitriev proposed the construction of an underground tunnel that would link the coasts of Alaska with the Russian Arctic through the Bering Strait for rail freight transport. He ‘Putin-Trump Tunnel’as he called it, a project that would serve to “symbolize the unity” between the two countries. As a builder he proposed Elon Musk and his Boring Company. “An interesting idea,” Trump responded.
More recently, while the 28 points of the latest “peace proposal” for Ukraine were being drawn up in Miami Beach with Dimitriev at the table, the Kremlin negotiator proposed that companies from the two countries join together “to exploit the enormous mineral wealth of the Arctic”, according to ‘The Wall Street Journal’. These 28 points were received with dismay in kyiv and Brussels due to their pronounced pro-Russian bias.
“What we can deduce from the Russian offers that have been leaked and how the Trump Administration is embracing them is that, once again, Russia has seduced the Americans,” British Keir Giles, Chatham House analyst and expert on the conflict between Russia and the West, tells this newspaper. “Trump and his inner circle are trying to iimpose Russian demands on Ukraine to be able to pursue their business agreements with Russia”he adds.
Western technology sought
For Moscow it is potentially a ‘win-win’. Not only with regard to Ukraine, but because of its need to attract foreign capital and, above all western technologyto develop the potential of its Arctic regions. On which their war machinery partly depends. “Russian officials often say that 80% of gas reserves and 17% of the oil reserves are in its Arctic zones,” writes the European Council on Foreign Relations. “But two thirds of these reserves are today inaccessible due to technological limitations.”
Melting in the Arctic. / EPC_EXTERNAS
The European sanctions, initiated in 2014 after the illegal annexation of Crimeahave significantly slowed down some projects, such as the exploitation of liquefied gas Arctic LNG 2. “They are no longer as dependent on Western technology because China has come to their rescue, but they still have a great interest in the return of Western companies,” explains Mikkel Runge Olesen from the Danish Institute for International Studies. Some media have published that the White House would have proposed lifting sanctions on Russian projects in the Arctic in exchange for tangible progress in the negotiation on Ukraine.
Moscow is also looking for investors for the development of ports and the infrastructure of the Northern Maritime Routewhich crosses the Arctic, shortening the distances between Europe and the Asian Pacific by 50%. Controlled by Russia, which requires permits for international freighters, it is the most navigable of the arctic routes. Navigation periods continue to increase as climate change worsens.
The risk of all this is that Trump ends up taking the Russian bait and abandons Ukraine to embrace the business opportunities offered by the Kremlin. The Republican has already shown numerous signs of impatience with kyiv, so much so that he has threatened to completely withdraw his support if he does not accept the “peace” proposed by the White House.
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