President Putin convened with members of the Security Council, including Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova to discuss Russia’s territorial claims in the Arctic. The country submitted its application for a vastly expanded Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) to the United Nations’ Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLCS) in 2001 with revisions in 2015 and 2021.
The revision in 2021 extends the Russian claim all the way to Canada’s and Greenland’s EEZs and added around 705,000 square kilometers to the previous submission.
The submission claims large parts of the central Arctic Ocean as a continuation of Russia’s continental shelf. The Committee has yet to hand down a decision regarding these claims, some of which stand in direct competition to submissions made by Canada and Denmark (via Greenland).
Russia’s existing EEZ in bright yellow, original extensions submissions in pale yellow-green, and the 2021 additions signified by the dotted lines adjacent to the North Pole. (Source: CLCS)
Russia has become increasingly assertive over its territory and waterways in the Arctic, including Putin considering new legislation to ban the travel of foreign vessels along the Northern Sea Route.
Last month Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) announced plans on how to counter foreign influence and incursions along Russia’s main trade route in the region, the Northern Sea Route. The FSB specifically noted the risk of provocations as the legal regime related to the Arctic shelf resources remains “incomplete” and claims have not been settled. […]
The plan calls to develop and maintain “means to refuse unauthorized passage of the strait zones in the waters of the Northern Sea Route.” Läs artikel