Russia announced large-scale Arctic war-games in 2019

Moscow is ramping up its claims to the rapidly melting Arctic, with a major military exercise involving ships, tanks and aircraft.

The Arctic is heating up. And it’s not just due to climate change. The appearance of new shipping lanes and access to once isolated resources as the ice retreats has Moscow racing to stake its claims.

According to the Russian Ministry of Defence, it will demonstrate its ability to exercise its military might in the northern frontier in August-September.

The Tsentr-2019 exercise will bring together Russia’s Northern Fleet, Pacific Fleet and Central Military District in what it calls a “serious test of the battle capacities of the Arctic troops”.

FIRE AND ICE

In 2018, Russian and Chinese forces combined in a rare display of co-ordinated firepower in the northern regions of Siberia and Mongolia. More than 300,000 troops, 36,000 tanks and 1000 aircraft took part.

The exact scale of the Tsentr-2019 exercise is not yet certain. But Moscow says it will be among the year’s biggest, and the scale of the operation requires the expansion and updating of existing northern port infrastructure.

Russian state-controlled news service Izvestia reports the exercise will be held between the Novaya Zemlya and New Siberian Islands, covering a large swath of the country’s north. It is intended to put a range of new weaponry through its paces to determine the impact of the cold, wet conditions, including air-defence missiles, armoured vehicles, all-terrain vehicles and support equipment.

As the exercise takes place during the northern hemisphere summer, conditions for ground troops practising combat inside the Arctic Circle will not be pleasant, Isvesta quotes a military expert as saying. The melting, loose ice turns the region into a swamp.

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“But in the Arctic, divisions and armies do not fight,” he said. “Summer and the beginning of autumn are the most favourable time for the fleet, since the waters of the coastal seas will be without ice.”

Isvesta says sme 500 new military facilities have been built in the Arctic region during the past four years.

Russian troops, and their reindeer-pulled sled, practice under Arctic conditions. Picture: MoD

POWER PUSH

Moscow has also announced plans to continue building-up its permanent military presence in the Arctic over the next year.

The announcement comes after years of increased activity in the Arctic, which Moscow has declared a top priority due to its mineral riches and military importance.

“We’ll finish building infrastructure in 2019 to accommodate air defence radar units and aviation guidance points on the Sredny and Wrangel Islands, and on Cape Schmidt” in the Russian Arctic, Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said.

He said accommodation for military personnel and further aviation infrastructure had been completed elsewhere in the Arctic, at a defence ministry meeting also attended by President Vladimir Putin.

Russia has opened a string of military and scientific bases in the Arctic in recent years, with interest in the region growing as rising temperatures open up shipping routes and make hitherto inaccessible mineral resources easier to exploit.

Putin has made several trips to the Arctic and last year said further exploration and extraction of raw materials from the area was “extremely important”.

A serviceman with a rifle during military exercises conducted by the Russian Pacific Fleet's naval infantry unit at the Bamburovo firing range. Picture: Getty

NATO this year held its biggest military exercises since the end of the Cold War near Russia’s Arctic border with Norway. Finland accused Moscow of jamming GPS signals in the region during the manoeuvres.

At a Victory Day military parade this year, Moscow displayed a new snowmobile used by Arctic units