According to Korshunov, last January the Military Times.com online newspaper published that the US armed force is “preparing for military confrontations in the Arctic, now that waterways have become more navigable as the ice melts.”

The Russian diplomat described this narrative as “worrying, since it is about military exploitation of the region, which is of our concern, since there are no problems in the Arctic that require weapons for any solution”.

He reminded that the Council is made up of eight members defined as Arctic nations: Canada, Denmark, the United States, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia and Sweden.

Another 13 non-Arctic states (China, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain, South Korea, Singapore, Switzerland and the United Kingdom) belong to the regional body as observers.

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