Russia's Arctic Brigade: from the High North to the Ukrainian Steppe
Russia's Arctic territory stretches along more than 24,000 kilometres of coastline along the Barents Sea, the Arctic Ocean, the Bering Sea, and the Sea of Okhotsk,accounting for 53 per cent of the Arctic Ocean coastline. Its importance is such that the latest Arctic Yearbook publication has been exclusively dedicated to the Russian Arctic region. Russia's renewed ambitions in the Arctic have attracted increasing attention in the West, and the Kremlin has gradually taken steps to increase its military capability there. Over the last several years, Russia published new strategic documents mentioning the Arctic, reopened old soviet bases, and engaged in big publicity stunts aimed at demonstrating its power in the region. The economic potential and the interest in the Northern Sea Route (NSR) are enormous for the Kremlin. As authors like M. Lagutina point out, the Arctic is the only geopolitical space where Russia can still be considered the main power (Russia's Arctic Policy in the Twenty-First Century, 2019). The year 2007 can be viewed as the beginning of the “rush for the Arctic” when a crewed descent to the ocean bottom was performed at the North Pole. The polar explorer Artur Chilingarov planted the Russian flag on the seabed and later declared the Arctic to be Russian.
One can wonder, what do Russian Arctic ambitions have to do with Ukraine? The answer is that Russia's 2022 military intervention in Ukraine will inevitably culminate in the accession of two subarctic states (Finland and Sweden) to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). This has already huge implications for the High North and Russia's military posture. Russian troops have been permanently deployed in the Arctic since 2013 (along with the FSB's Border Guard Service and the Coast Guard Border Service). After the spike in tensions with the West following the events in Ukraine in 2014, Russia created the Arctic Brigade in early 2015, ahead of the planned schedule. They were placed near the border with Finland and Norway, meant to be a response to a perceived militarization of the Arctic by Norwegian and Canadian forces. The Arctic Brigade is formed of two army motorised infantry brigades: the 200th Separate Motorized Rifle Brigade (SMRBr) in Pechenga and the 80th Separate Motorized Rifle Brigade in Alakurtti. It is part of the 14th Army Corps and is complemented by Special Forces units from the 61st Naval Infantry Brigade, which has its base in Sputnik. The mainstay of the Arctic Brigade falls under the jurisdiction of the Northern Fleet Joint Strategic Command (OSK Sever). OSK Sever was established in 2014 as one of Russia's five military districts and has its main base in the city of Severomorsk. Many had speculated about a potential confrontation in the Arctic prior to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and now even more are doing so. In truth, Russia's Arctic forces have already been engaged in combat, although not in the region they are tasked to defend, but more than 2,000 kilometres southward, in Ukraine.
Previous to the 2022 conflict, the harshest phase of battles in Donbas occurred between the summer of 2014 and the beginning of 2015. It is firmly believed that the separatist forces of Donetsk and Lugansk held the line during the government's summer offensive thanks to Russia, which provided support through personnel, material, and intelligence. Even Putin recognized that there were some people [Russians] “engaged in certain issues of the military sphere” in Donbas, although he again emphasised that they were “not regular military”.
Social media played a big role in revealing the presence of Russian troops in Donbas. This was mainly caused by the soldiers themselves or their families, who posted sensible information on social networks like VKontakte (Network analogous to Facebook created by the Durov brothers). The posted images did not only reveal details about the military personnel themselves but about the used vehicles. The white square tactical markings and hull numbers of armoured personnel carriers, battle tanks, or anti-air systems were painted over (from white to yellow), and new ones were added, trying to conceal the vehicles as just equipment of separatist troops. On some occasions, the vehicles were returned to their bases in Russia with the new signs from Donbas. According to open source investigators, enough evidence proves that elements of Russia's Arctic Brigade, specifically the 61st Naval Infantry Brigade and 200th SMRBr, were present in Donbas during 2014-2015. As a result of their participation in the armed conflict in Donbas and the combat experience acquired there (despite being Arctic-specialised), members of the 61st Naval Brigade were dispatched to Syria and underwent rotations in the war-torn country between 2015 and 2018. They were also present in the 2016 spring offensive against the Islamic State in Palmyra. The commander of the 61st Naval Infantry Brigade at the time, Colonel Valeriy Fedyanin, was killed in September 2017 near Deir ez-Zor.
The mobilisation of Russia's Arctic Brigade for the large-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 was rapidly reported by media dedicated to the Arctic region. This time, TikTok was of great use to track the movements of military units, including elements of the Arctic Brigade. OSINT accounts were also very active and quick in geolocating troop movements, sites of battles, or identifying equipment. When the invasion started, the main zone of operations of the 200th Arctic brigade elements was reported to be the Kharkiv axis. Early war footage, showing the remains of a destroyed T-80BVM, attributes it to elements of the 200th who set up a roadblock north of Kharkiv. The confidence of a small Russian unit to act in such a way near a big city could partly explain the common high casualty rate during the first weeks of the war. This has already been reported as being a result of a failure of Russian intelligence to adequately inform about Ukrainian war readiness and the poor leadership displayed by the military commanders. Preliminary lessons from the war indicate that the Russian command emphasised the need for quick operations, ordering units to move in columns. This led them to bypass Ukrainian units and end up encircled and eventually destroyed.
In late February and throughout March, Ukrainian online media started mentioning the destruction and capture of Russian equipment belonging to the 200th SMRBr. Advisers to the Ukrainian President's office claimed that a whole tactical group of several hundred Russian Arctic servicemen were killed. At the same time, the Ukrainian Defense Ministry suggested that the 200th SMRBr had lost personnel and equipment worth two battalion-tactical groups (BTGs), including a brigade commander. There are several images indicating that the 200th SMRBr lost or abandoned multiple T-80BVM tanks (mainly in service in the Arctic or The Far East), identifiable by their new invasion yellow tactical markings, or MT-LBV armoured personnel carriers, which have wider tracks than the original MT-LB to make them better suited to arctic conditions Russia's Arctic Brigade is also equipped with more modernised or rare equipment such as the Tor-M2DT and Pantsir-SA air defence systems, or the 2S19 Msta-S self-propelled howitzers. The losses among Russian officers of the Arctic Brigade have also been striking for many experts. Among the senior and junior killed officers of the 200th are Lieutenant Colonel Dinar Khametov, commander of the rocket artillery battalion of the 200th, Major Leonid Belyakov or Senior Lieutenant Dmitry Kuznetsov. Despite all this, propaganda from both sides and Russia's internal control of information have made it difficult, for now, to determine the exact degree of involvement and losses of the Arctic Brigade. The 200th has not been entirely eliminated. For now there is not enough evidence to prove that. Although their losses have been significant, the units of the brigade active in Ukraine have been constantly receiving new personnel, albeit with questionable experience and training time.
Regarding the rest of the Arctic Brigade, according to some sources, the 80th SMRBr sat out the initial months of the war. This, however, may not be entirely true. In April, local media from Alakurtti (where the 80th's base is located), published the obituary of three reconnaissance soldiers from the 80th who were killed in combat at the beginning of March in the vicinity of Kharkiv. As the Alakurtti base is near the border, Finland usually monitors it and according to information drawn from satellite images published in July, Russia had sent at least one BTG from the 80th to Ukraine in late May. It is also possible that equipment from the bases was dispatched to other units that were in need of them. At the end of August, the Murmansk Duma adopted a bill on social support for families of participants in military operations in Ukraine. It was mentioned that schoolchildren of dead or injured servicemen would receive free meals, the total amount of benefited children was 1,274. This figure gives some possible clues about the losses within the Arctic Brigade.
It must also be noted that Russia's Airborne Assault Troops (VDV), who are popularly considered the elite within the Russian army, are supposed to provide critical support to the Arctic Brigade. Units of the 76th Guards Airborne Assault Division (Pskov), the 98th Guards Airborne Division (Ivanovo), and the 106th Guards Airborne Division (Tula) have participated in exercises in the region and should provide protection for the Kola Peninsula in case of conflict there. According to investigations, several VDV brigades have suffered considerable losses, including high-ranking officers, in Ukraine. Being deployed in the northern axis aimed at taking Kyiv, along with critical infrastructure, airborne troops were either lost in combat or thrown needlessly into ambushes during the first days of the invasion. Multiple graphic videos and images of destroyed Russian columns of BMDs (dedicated infantry fighting vehicles for airborne troops) can be found even on platforms such as YouTube. The redeployment of airborne units to the eastern and southern fronts has probably further exhausted their fighting capacity.
The fact that some weapon systems and planes were being moved to the Finish border was perceived as alarming, making many wonder if the war in Ukraine could cause a spillover. Putin himself hinted that Russia would respond to NATO if they militarised Finland and Sweden, he then remarked that their accession to NATO was not the same case as Ukraine because of the absence of territorial conflict.
There is a security dilemma in the Arctic post-2014. When there is a security dilemma, insecure countries often react by feeling compelled to strengthen their military capabilities. When the competition for access and influence in the Arctic increases, so does the need for mechanisms that could help overcome tensions and maintain peace. Without a pre-established framework, the risk of escalation is inevitable. It is therefore essential that Arctic countries conduct a dialogue on military security issues, something difficult when frameworks such as the Arctic Council paused and then partially resumed their work without Russia. It is often said that Russia's strategic blunder in Ukraine changed the dynamic for countries such as Sweden and Finland, leading both countries to strongly desire NATO accession. Finland considered it a possibilityif needed, while Sweden never excluded an attack from Russia orNATO accession. In 2020, Sweden identified a ‘new military dynamic' in the Arctic and it was decided that the defence spending would rise by 40% from 2021 to 2025. Finland also recognised in 2021 that the military threat in the Arctic had grown following negative developments in other regions. Since Russia's 2014 actions in Ukraine spiked fears in the High North, the two nordic countries became 'enhanced opportunity partners' to NATO. Events that have occurred over the past year gave the definitive green light for the organisation, which seems to be steps ahead. The degradation of some of Russia's combat capabilities in the Arctic as a result of the war in Ukraine is evident and can explain the nuclear signalling that worried some experts and journalists. Although the revivedNorthern Fleet and the multi-layered defence that comprises the "Bastion'' concept is still the backbone of its Arctic presence, it will take some years for Russia to rebuild units like the 200th. With NATO’s presence growing in the Arctic region, it is of interest to Russia to maintain the position of the region’s main power or at least the perception of being such. However, engaging in aggressive actions in Ukraine will not be of help for its status nor its energy and trade route ambitions. It is a lesson that should have been learned already.