As climate change causes unprecedented environmental upheaval in the Arctic, it also opens the region to potential conflict, President Joe Biden said on Wednesday.
Logistics chains falter, investors flee and foreign markets vanish. But President Putin argues that Russia together with countries from "outside the region" will continue to forge ahead with Arctic development.
"We have all the resources and all the opportunities to quickly find alternative solutions," Putin told the participants of the meeting on the development of the Arctic zone.
Energy projects are put on hold and hyped ambitions for the Northern Sea Route increasingly look doomed. At the same time, the country is frozen out of international Arctic cooperation.
Russia’s Marine Rescue Service describes the unprecedented salvage operation as "extremely difficult" as ice was rapidly building up on the structures of the barges in the freezing cold polar night.
