Russians are threatening that a dispute with Norway over the Svalbard archipelago could end up in a war involving all NATO countries. The helicopter crash has become another pretext for discussion on this subject – writes Wojciech Jakóbik, editor-in-chief of BiznesAlert.pl.
Mysterious catastrophe
Four days ago a helicopter with eight people aboard crashed near the Svalbard archipelago in the Arctic. This is the area of dispute between Norway and Denmark, which came to life after the catastrophe.
Mil Mi-8 helicopter property of Convers Avia Air private company was heading from an abandoned Russian installation known as Pyramiden to Barentsburg, the second largest settlement in the Svalbard archipelago. Three scientists and five crew members were said to be on board. The archipelago is an area located over 800 km from mainland Norway, full of glaciers and fjords.
Pyramiden is an area of former coal mining, which the Russians bought out 80 years ago. It is known, e.g. from the statue of Vladimir Lenin, which is located the northernmost in the world. The last settlers left Pyramiden in 1998.
Initially, Russia wanted to introduce its own force to the disputed area for rescue purposes. Eventually, however, the Norwegians took care of it. Prime Minister Erna Solberg expressed condolences to her Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev, who thanked for help.
The Svalbard archipelago is a demilitarized Arctic area under the care of NATO and Norwegian control. The 1920 Spitsbergen Treaty allows the signatory countries to exploit local raw materials, including coal and other energy resources.
An opportunity to provoke?
From publicly available information, it is not possible to conclude whether Norway’s rapid reaction was an attempt to block possible provocation. However, such possibility should be considered, wcis evidenced by the statements of the Russian side.
The Russians argue that the catastrophe once again proves the need to build a rescue base under their control at Spitsbergen, helping the Arktikugol company, which is active in the region, if need. Presently, there are no Russians in the rescue teams, because – the Norwegians are strongly opposed – Anatoly Leontiev, representative of the Russian Fisheries Agency, said to TASS agency.
The catastrophe and Leontiev’s opinion appeared shortly after Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov commented on Norway’s policy at Svalbard during the Euro-Atlantic Council meeting. In his view, the Norwegian authorities illegally limit access of the Arktikugol coal-mining company, as well as the development of Russian tourism and research in the region.
The tension around Svalbard is raised by unexpected visits by Russian politicians in the region. In 2015, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin appeared at the Longyearbyen airport, who in connection with the sanctions for illegal annexation of the Ukrainian Crimea has a ban on entry into the European Union. Nonetheless, he appeared in the Norwegian territory near Barentsburg.
Shortly after, Longyearbyen was visited by the NATO Parliamentary Assembly. The official reason for the visit was talks on climate change. The Russians accused NATO of ‘unprecedented military preparation’ and ‘provocation’. The criticism was coordinated with the materials of RIA Novosti to confirm that the first settlers in Svalbard were Russians who arrived there in 1569. Only afterwards they were to be replaced by researchers from the Netherlands, Great Britain, Denmark, Sweden and Norway. This would prove the historical rights of Russia in the region. These theses were then distributed by the propaganda platform Russia Today.
The Russians also used the hydrocarbon extraction area to raise the tension in Svalbard. In a diplomatic note of March 2015, they protested for oil drilling in the Barents Sea near the archipelago, claiming it to be a violation of the Spitsbergen Treaty. However, it assumes equal access of signatories to local raw materials provided that the work complies with Norwegian law. Norway recognizes that the continental shelf near the archipelago does not belong to it, but to the continental part of the country governed by the 1958 Continental Shelf Convention.
In April 2016, the venue in question was visited by instructors of the Chechen Special Forces during a trip to the Russian military base in Barneo. Meanwhile, the Spitsbergen Treaty prohibits the use of this territory for military purposes. The incident caused a stir in Norway.
Arctic dispute involves NATO
Since 2014 (year of illegal annexation of Crimea) Russian activity in the region has been growing. Then the Russians established a research center in Barentsburg. It is managed by the Russian Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute and the Russian Hydrometeorological Service. In 2016, the venue was visited by 27 000 tourists, 600 of them were Russians, according to Arktikugol.
Nonetheless, the Arctic dispute was discussed at the NATO summit in Warsaw and it was of equal importance to discuss the dangers in the Baltic Sea. It was an area of cooperation between Poland, Denmark and Norway, who are looking forward to build the Baltic Pipe, a gas pipeline supplying Norwegian gas to the Polish market, also referred to as the Norwegian Corridor. We wrote about it in BiznesAlert.pl.
In BiznesAlert.pl it could be read that the archipelago in question became the target of a hybrid war.. One can imagine a scenario in which the Russians use an excuse to introduce their own forces and destabilize security in the region. It can be read about little green men at Svalbard in the BusinessAlert.pl text of 2014.
On October 4th, 2017, the Russian Kommersant revealed a leak from the Russian defense ministry that the ministry acknowledged the Svalbard dispute as a potential threat to the war with NATO. Conflict with Norway would mean the need to launch a mutual defense mechanism as provided for in Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty. The attack on Norway would have to end with the response of NATO as long as the hybrid actions of the Russians would allow to be clearly blamed for aggression.
According to the report revealed by the Kommersant, it is stated that in the assessment of the Russian party, Norway is preparing for the „absolute jurisdiction over the Spitsbergen archipelago (Svalbard)”. Officially, however, Oslo is convincing that relations in the region are effectively governed by the Law of the Sea and international regulations, and that the Arctic can be an area of fruitful economic cooperation.