Vanguard Magazine

www.vanguardcanada.com AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2019 25 Russia's heavy icebreakers are not only considerably newer than Louis St. Laurent and Polar Star, but they also remain in the Arctic year-round. arCtiC a more hostile environment for industry than the one surrounding Yamal LNG. But thanks to a new fleet of 15 Arc7 icebreakers that can carry liquefied natu- ral gas shipments, the Russians can keep operations humming year-round as they extract and transport Yamal's 44 trillion cubic feet of natural gas reserves. A Grand Vision and a tightening Grip During a visit to Yamal LNG's facilities in 2017, Russian President Vladimir Putin made clear that the plant and its icebreak- ers are part of a larger vision to dominate the Arctic. "This is perhaps the largest step forward in our developing of the Arctic," he said. "Now we can safely say that Rus- sia will expand through the Arctic this and next century." A major part of this expansion is devel- opment of the Northern Sea Route, which runs along Russia's Arctic coast from the Kara Sea to the Bering Sea and the Pacific Ocean. With this route, Russia can ship gas from Yamal and other Arctic locations to energy-thirsty Eastern nations weeks faster than the time required to go west around Europe and through the Suez Canal. In the case of China, the most energy-thirsty na- tion of all, using the Northern Sea Route cuts shipment times by as much as 25 days. Georgia Today wrote on April 15 that this shipping route gives a "major boost" to Russia's economy, due largely to how it better connects Russia and China. If cur- rent trends persist, "we might have a situ- ation when the Russians for the first time in their history border water where major world commercial activity unfolds." And the Russians are now tightening their grip on this route in a troubling way. In March, the Russian government announced that foreign ships sailing this route must submit a request 45 days in advance, bring a Russian maritime pilot aboard for the crossing, and pay hefty ad- ditional transit fees. Russia says any vessel that fails to comply can be detained and even "eliminated." Even if a foreign vessel abides by all of the requirements, Russian authorities said they can reject any request for passage with no explanation. The worrisome – and illegal – part of these new Russian rules concerns the Ber- ing Strait, which lies between Russia and the United States, with Canada sitting nearby. The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) says waters 200 nautical miles from a given na- tion's coast constitute that country's ex- clusive economic zone, and that the nation The Canadian Coast Guard Ship Louis S. St-Laurent ties up to the Coast Guard Cutter Healy in the Arctic Ocean Sept. 5, 2009. Photo: www.wikipedia.org

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