Russia successfully launched on Sunday its satellite Arktika-M, whose elliptical orbit will give it unprecedented surveillance of the Arctic. The satellite is multi-role, able to monitor the rapidly changing Arctic environment and contribute towards search and rescue operations. When combined with its expected partner satellite, due to launch in 2023, Russia will be able to take images of the Arctic every 15-30 minutes.  

The media emphasis so far has been on how this is a clear signal of Russia’s Arctic ambitions through solidifying its activity and so, projection in the region, or indeed how these are moves in the context of a new Arctic scramble. However, there is also a domestic element to this story that alters these aforementioned perceptions somewhat regarding the certainty and increasing confidence in Russia’s Arctic presence towards being slightly hyperbolic.

The satellite is able to be used for both climate monitoring and safeguarding the economic potential of the Northern Sea Route. These dual roles are increasingly at odds with each other however within Russia domestically, with emphasis on one coming at the expense of the other. The tensions between them undermine ideas of the stability of Russia’s Arctic expansion.

The Arctic is expensive currently to operate in, despite easing conditions. Russia’s vast Arctic investment, totaling $300 billion in oil and gas, which is Russia’s main Arctic economic focus, will need to make a viable return soon as Russia’s debt continues to rise. But to do so, oil needs to reach $100 a barrel, something that is quite difficult to foresee in the mid-term, given the increased global focus on renewables, nuclear and shale.

To ease this, Russian Arctic oil companies want Moscow to lift environmental protections that increase the time and cost of operations. In an open letter addressed to the Prime Minister of the Russian Federation, Mikhail Mishustin, and signed by all major Russian oil companies, they complained at onerous regulation and wanted “operative” changes to prevent them scaling back their activities, which Putin had previously labelled as vital to Russia’s future.        

Publicly Moscow is opposed to this. The Russian government has backed plans to block profits of companies that destroy the environment, and the Ministry of Natural Resources noted that protections are required as the Arctic has a “special ecological sensitivity” which is “fragile”. This is in the context of Russia’s 2020 Norilsk Arctic oil spill, the largest in history. Moscow launched criminal proceedings and fined the oil company responsible, Norilsk Nickel, $2 billion.

However, it appears that Moscow less publicly is willing to meet the oil companies half-way. It has said it would support the removal of certain exploration activities, like boreholes, from the legislation’s scope. Previously the government has gone out of the way to appease its powerful oil and gas lobby, gutting its 2019 proposed climate legislation when faced with their opposition.

This puts Moscow in a very difficult situation. Domestically its most influential economic contributors are opposed to measures that would make their operating costs increase in the short-term, and Russia needs its Arctic investments to one day soon have a tangible return. At the same time though, in the longer-term, Russia risks further global isolation by shunning the climate agenda adopted by the EU, US and China. It will miss the opportunity to modernize its economy along renewable lines and will regardless face a collapse of its fossil fuel exports as the world shifts to alternative sources. By 2040 it is predicted Russia’s European oil market will have halved. Likewise as the US, EU and China continue to put climate change at the heart of their agenda, Russia may find itself the source of increased global tension and further sanctions.

Until Moscow can somehow reunify its economic and climate interests to plot an economically and ecologically sustainable basis for its Arctic policy which mitigates, rather than exacerbates, domestic and foreign pressures, the addition of elements like its Arctic satellites are more a superficial dressing to a shaky and short-term strategy, rather than a reinforcement of Russian ambitions- after all what use would Russia’s Arctic investments be if and when their potential foreign markets shrink?