Russia and China Eye NATO’s ‘Arctic Achilles Heel’

No goodbye Lenin: A bust of the Bolshevik leader survived the collapse of the Soviet Union in a Russian enclave on the Norwegian island of Spitsbergen Jonathan NACKSTRAND AFP/File

Barentsburg (Svalbard) (AFP) – Russian flags flap in the stiff polar breeze, a bust of Lenin looms out of the snow and a vast slogan declares, “Communism is our goal!”

No, this is not some time warp Soviet settlement lost in the Arctic wastes, but a corner of Norway where Moscow can — theoretically at least — mine, build, drill and fish what it likes.

Welcome to Spitsbergen, the largest island of the Svalbard archipelago and “NATO’s Achilles heel in the Arctic”.

These spectacular islands of glaciers and mountain peaks halfway between Norway and the North Pole are a strategic and economic bridgehead not just for Moscow but also for Beijing.

All because of one of the most bizarre and little-understood international treaties ever concluded, which gives Norway sovereignty but allows the citizens of 46 countries to exploit the islands’ potentially vast resources on an equal footing.

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Source: France24