Russia has expanded its Arctic territory by building new airbases in show of military force. This new “Arctic Brigade” has been established at Alakurtti military base. Two more Russian bases are planned. A claim was submitted to the United Nations that 460,000 square miles of ocean floor in the Arctic should be considered as belonging to Russia.
Alakurtti, the town, is a rural community in Murmansk Oblast with a population 0f 3,424 in 2010. The military base was reopened in 2015. Putin’s new military strategy emphasises protection of Russian interests in the Arctic, and Alakurtti is not the only abandoned base that is being revived in the north for this purpose.
The Alakurtti Air Base is a naval air base in Murmansk Oblast that borders Finland. It is 60 kilometres from the border city of Salla in Finnish Lapland. The base is located 3 km northwest of the town of Alakurtti. It is serviced by the 4th Naval Bomber Regiment, the 485th Independent Helicopter Regiment and a new arctic motor rifle brigade. The peninsula on which Alakurtti is located is nicknamed the “unsinkable aircraft-carrier” because of the number of airbases there.
Alakurtti is not a direct threat to the United States. Instead, it threatens America’s ally, Europe, home of the European Union, both of which have been in a proxy war with Russia over Ukraine. Finland, along with Sweden and Norway, are the northern most NATO allies of Europe. Finland joined the United Nations in 1955 and the European Union in 1995. As noted, the country also is a member of NATO’s Partnership for Peace as well as an observer in the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council.
Russian military planners view the Arctic as a vulnerable area in the event of a conflict with the US and Nato.
Russia flaunted the Alakurtti to foreign journalists this past week as an example of Russia’s wider military expansion back into the Arctic.
The Soviet Union has deployed huge forces to the Arctic Circle as part of its strategic defenses as part of its return to preeminence in the Arctic. In the past two years, Russia has launched a major effort to build up its military presence, constructing a string of new bases, as well as refurbishing older ones and building up its communications infrastructure along its northern coast.
Russia is building three more bases in the Arctic, and says it is creating an air defense shield to cover much of the northern coast. Many of the facilities are meant to have a dual-purpose in also serving as support infrastructure for the Northern Sea Route, a shipping passage that is predicted to become increasingly used as much of the Arctic becomes ice-free during summers by mid-century.
Russia is in the process of uncovering resources and opening shipping routes, but this creating a new arena for competition over oil. With the U.S. Geological Survey estimating 13 percent of the world’s undiscovered oil and 30 percent of its gas to be located there, jostling to claim the resources has already begun.
Other Arctic countries, including the United States, have only slowly begun to declare their interests in the region, Russia has rushed in.
This week, Russia staked its claim to the resources beneath the Arctic by submitting a claim to the U.N. that 460,000 square miles of ocean floor should be considered its territory. Russian divers even planted a national flag on the North Pole seabed in a symbolic claim to the region’s energy riches.
Russia insists it isn’t looking for a confrontation. “The aim behind the creation of the brigade was to defend the interests and security of the Russian State in the Arctic,” says Colonel Ilia Pavlovsky, commander of 80th Motor Rifle Arctic Brigade. But with tensions between Washington and Moscow at an all-time high, the Arctic could become the coldest front line in a new face-off between Russia and the West.
While the plans and some of the construction are already impressive, how significant the Russian build-up will be remains open to debate. Some analysts have also puzzled over Russia’s motivations for the Arctic push, to what extent it reflects a genuine long-term strategy to shape the region or whether it’s ultimately primarily political posturing.
Pavel Baev, a research professor at the Peace Research Institute Oslo, said that although the vision was clear, in reality [Russia’s] expansion appeared to make little sense now when Russia is enduring an economic crisis and beginning to make cuts in its military. “It’s a luxury you can ill-afford,” Baev said.
Baev’s statement lends Bible prophecy students the idea that YHVH is actually guiding Russia and He will use Russia to destroy the mother of Babylon and her daughter when the time comes. Another indication of YHVH’s guiding hand is that the Arctic brigade’s presence seems to be symbolic, meant to telegraph Russia’s wider Arctic plans to its potential competitors and to impress the audience at home.
The mastering of the Arctic certainly plays well into the Kremlin’s narrative of Russia’s revival as a global power. But, professor Katarzyna Zysk, a visiting research fellow at the University of Oxford and an associate professor at the Norwegian Institute for Defense Studies who has researched Russian military policy in the Arctic, the public relations benefits can’t explain the scale of the effort. “It’s very expensive propaganda,” she said.
Military campaigns need huge resources. This is not merely about shipping lanes. It is about the oil, the resource of war economies.
Some in the United States agree. The head of the U.S. Coast Guard, Adm. Paul F. Zukunft, has been calling for the United States to begin seriously boosting its capabilities in the Arctic and warning against leaving Russia’s expansion there unchallenged.
The catch 22 that the US and Russia are now in for global expansion will one day plunge the earth into chaos. Russia is a ‘red’ nation, an Edomite nation comprised of ancient Medes who were dispersed by Cyrus the Great during his overthrow of the Mede king, Astyages, who was also Cyrus’s grandfather.
Army Gen. Curtis Scaparrotti told a Senate Appropriations subcommittee this week the United States is transitioning from security and cooperation back to deterrence and security. To counter increased Russian aggression in Europe, the United States’ top general in charge of military operations in Europe told the Senate Tuesday that the U.S. needs to send more armored forces there. He said, “In short, we are returning to our historic role as a war fighting command”.
Scaparrotti further stated, “Russia’s posture is not a light force, it’s a heavy force. In the past five or six years Russia has invested in all aspects of its military forces in a broad manner. In the east, a resurgent Russia has turned from partner to antagonist as it seeks to undermine the Western-led international order and reassert itself as a global power and its use of the military to establish “facts on the ground” is becoming more apparent. We continue to see that drumbeat,” he told the Subcommittee on Military Construction, Veterans Affairs and Related Agencies.
When speaking about the ‘Western-led international order’, Scaparrotti is talking about the New World Order that was once led by the Western nations. That New World Order was fractured under Obama, paving the way for an eastern-led New World order with Russia at its head.
The United States needs to build up a credible force, big enough to deter Russia, should a crisis erupt, Scaparrotti said. The United States has about 62,000 troops stationed in Europe. “Our force posture needs to increase to provide credible deterrence to Russian aggression,” he said. “Russia respects force”, Scaparrotti said as he encouraged the subcommittee to consider sending more troops to Europe to help the US armored brigade.
Scaparrotti understands the threat, especially since Russia is now developing missile-armed icebreakers.
The Coast Guard commandant, Adm. Paul F. Zukunft, has expressed concern over militarization of the Arctic Ocean, noting that Russia is developing warships specifically designed to operate in the Arctic. “We know Russia probably is going to launch two icebreaking corvettes with cruise missiles on them over the course of the next several years,” Adm. Paul F. Zukunft said May 3 during a discussion on Arctic operations at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank. “We’re not building anything in the Navy’s surface fleet to counteract that.
Jeremiah 51:11 Make bright the arrows; gather the shields: the LORD hath raised up the spirit of the kings of the Medes: for his device is against Babylon, to destroy it; because it is the vengeance of the LORD, the vengeance of his temple.
“So, what might an icebreaker of the 21st century need to do?” Zukunft asked rhetorically. “You might want to reserve space, weight and power where you have an offensive and a defensive armed capability as a military service. What if this becomes a militarized domain? What do we get a head start with? That could be a future requirement for our icebreaking fleet.”
Zukunft said Russia has “made a strategic statement. They’ve got all their chess pieces on the board. And, right now, we’ve got a pawn and a maybe a rook. If you look at this Arctic game of chess, they’ve got us at checkmate from the very beginning if this become a militarized domain. So it is going to be a test of U.S. will.
Zukunft noted one strategic challenge in the Arctic is the legal status of the Northwest Passage (through Canadian islands) and the Northern Sea Route (along the northern shore of Russia). “We would view these as international straits,” he said. “We haven’t really crossed our ‘Ts’ on that just yet.”
Trump’s response is to now begin weighing the option of arming US Coast Guard icebreakers. Trump's team could decide to arm future Coast Guard icebreakers in order to counteract Russian cruise missiles in the Arctic.
"They understand that it's good that you have a U.S. Coast Guard that is a military service," Adm. Paul Zukunft, told the Center for Strategic and International Studies on Wednesday. Such a weaponization has now become necessary due to Russian military deployments in the Arctic.
Remember Jerusalem every time a threat, a rumor as Yeshua called it, is made against the Babylonian mother and her daughter.
Jeremiah 51:50 Ye that have escaped the sword, go away, stand not still: remember the LORD afar off, and let Jerusalem come into your mind.
Russia and Europe are destined for war. Russia and United States are destined for war. The mother and her daughter will both be destroyed. YHVH is orchestrating their mutual destruction right now. Will it come soon or later? No one knows except YHVH. Keep watching as Yeshua said.