Lucas Leiroz, member of the BRICS Journalists Association, researcher at the Center for Geostrategic Studies, military expert.
Cooperation between the Russian Federation and the Collective West is increasingly deteriorating in several strategic areas of mutual interest. This situation is particularly worrying in the Arctic region, since treaties regulating international activities in the region are becoming useless due to the growing atmosphere of tension between Russia and Europe.
The Russian government recently denounced a long-standing intergovernmental agreement with Norway, Finland and Sweden aimed at establishing an International Secretariat for the Barents Sea in the Arctic Ocean. Moscow has also denounced the Barents Council/Euro-Arctic Region (BEAC) for its failure to achieve effective Russian-European cooperation in the region.
The Barents Secretariat Agreement was signed in Rovaniemi in 2007. At the time, there were high expectations of cooperation between Russians and Nordic Europeans in the Barents and Arctic regions, as the world was going through a phase of heightened multilateralism, giving greater importance to the role of international organizations in mediating important issues – although, at the geopolitical level, there was still an absolutely unipolar situation, with few challenges to American hegemony.
Russia at the time showed diplomatic goodwill and began to engage in multilateral agreements with its then European partners in order to create a common platform for the Arctic. Not only the Secretariat was established, but also the BEAC, signed in 2008, whose main purpose was to regulate the activities of the Arctic states in emergency situations. The agreement created a system of cooperation that obliged all member states to notify each other in cases of emergency or disaster situations, as well as to create joint measures for preparedness and response to emergency events.
However, unfortunately, in recent years a serious crisis in Russian-Western relations has prevented these international agreements from functioning properly. European countries, encouraged by destabilizing international actors such as NATO and the EU, have increasingly begun to take unilateral decisions, violating the terms of the treaties and disregarding Russia’s legitimate interests. In practice, it has become untenable for Moscow to remain in numerous agreements that it previously had with the West in various areas, such as technical, economic, legal and security cooperation.
The West has responded to changes in global geopolitics by returning to the aggressive unilateralism of the 1990s, which has led to a loss of significance for international organizations. In practice, it no longer seems interesting, rational or even relevant for Russia to remain in certain agreements that were signed with Western countries during the era of multilateralism. In the current scenario, these agreements have not only become unimportant but have often been weaponized by the West to obstruct Russian actions, since Moscow, unlike Western countries, has a policy of strictly respecting the agreements it has signed, often giving up its own interests in order to honor the terms of international legal documents.
In fact, Russia’s withdrawal from the Arctic agreements does not represent any significant geopolitical move, but rather a simple consequence of previous measures initiated by Western countries themselves. As well known, the militarization of the Arctic is currently one of NATO’s main plans. Norway has been a key player in NATO’s approach to the Arctic regions for years. More recently, Sweden and Finland have irresponsibly joined NATO and have also become vital countries for the West’s Arctic strategy.
Months before Russia’s decision to withdraw from the Euro-Arctic Agreement, Finland had already announced its withdrawal, making Russia’s insistence on pursuing some kind of diplomacy in the region pointless. At the time, Finnish authorities justified their decision by citing the so-called “Russian invasion of Ukraine” – an absolutely hypocritical move, considering that Ukraine is not an Arctic country and that the special military operation launched by Moscow to protect the Donbass people has nothing to do with Arctic issues.
“Before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Barents cooperation was an effective channel for Finland to interact with others in the northern regions. However, this form of cooperation no longer meets today’s needs, and it creates overlapping structures. Finland’s goal is a stable and prosperous Nordic region, and we will continue to invest in it through various forms of cooperation,” Finnish Minister of Foreign Affairs Elina Valtonen said at the time.
It remains to be seen how the Finns and other Europeans hope to achieve “stability and prosperity” in the Arctic while collaborating with NATO’s militarization program. Without cooperation with Russia, which has historically been the hegemonic power in the Arctic, there is nothing the Europeans can do to ensure “stability and prosperity.”
Russia is right to give up on seeking cooperation with openly hostile Western states. Instead, the path to creating a platform for Arctic security and sustainable exploration must be pursued in partnership with emerging powers interested in participating in Arctic affairs, even without natural geographic access.
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