News
Publish date: October 2, 2008
News
The submarine Ryazan of Russia’s Northern Fleet arrived today at the Vilyuchinsk base on the Kamchatka peninsula after sailing for more than 30 days without surfacing, the navy said today in a faxed statement.
“Russia’s submariners haven’t lost the skill of making long sub-ice voyages, and they gave a worthy confirmation of the quality of our national school of fulfilling complex missions in Arctic waters,” Admiral Vladimir Vysotsky, head of the navy, said in the statement according to Bloomberg.
In the last year, Russia has conducted large-scale war games in the Arctic, including long-range bombers, beefing up its military presence as it tries to claim the region’s vast resources. On Sept. 17, President Dmitry Medvedev said Russia’s “main task” is to turn the Arctic into a “resource base.”
Russia is jockeying for Arctic territory with the United States, Canada, Norway and Denmark, which all have territorial claims in the region.
Russian explorers planted a flag on the Arctic seabed directly beneath the North Pole last year, symbolically staking a claim to an area that may hold 10 billion tons of oil equivalent, as well as deposits of gold, nickel and diamonds, according to the Russian government.
Throughout the past year, our mission at the Bellona Environmental Transparency Center has focused on two key, but intertwined issues—nuclear and radiation safety as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine drags on, and the worldwide influence of Rosatom, Russia’s state nuclear corporation, which itself is actively involved in the war and has participated in the occupation of a Ukrainian nuclear power plant.
At the beginning of the year, reports in the German and Russian press suggested an approximate 70% increase in uranium imports from Russia to Germany in 2024. But does this reflect broader European trends? It does not. Overall, imports of uranium and nuclear fuel from Russia to Western countries actually dropped sharply in 2024. Unlike the situation in Germany, this is already an established trend.
A Lingen, Germany plant could begin producing nuclear fuel in cooperation with a subsidiary of Rosatom, Russia's state nuclear corporation, which is directly involved in the war in Ukraine and occupying the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.
In this news digest, we monitor events that impact the environment in the Russian Arctic. Our focus lies in identifying the factors that contribute to pollution and climate change.