Russia’s renewed interest in the Arctic is well documented, and now so are new islands discovered during a Russian Navy expedition – along with a few other firsts made possible by a changing climate.
Vice Admiral Alexander Moiseev, the commander of Russia’s Northern Fleet, shared the discoveries during a press conference in Moscow on Wednesday. He provided details on two detachments that explored, respectively, the status of an existing military base on Alexandra Land island, and then a wider look at Novaya Zemlya and the Franz Josef Land archipelago.
The expedition aboard the Altai, which ran until late September, was conducted with partners from the Russian Geographical Society and the Russian Arctic National Park, as well as documentary filmmakers of the Russian Geographical Society, according to a statement from the defense ministry.
The discovery of new islands and new shipping routes is linked directly to climate change, Moiseev said. “Mostly, (the new islands) appear as the ice retreats, as in the past those areas were glaciers, but the thawing ice reveals the islands,” Moiseyev told TASS during the press conference. “The discoveries will be registered, every island will be named, but first of all we must provide the proofs.”
Five of the new islands are near North Island in the Novaya Zemlya grouping. There is also a new island in Gunter Bay in Franz Josef Land. At another site, the military and research crews confirmed the peninsula at Cape Mesyatsev on Eva Liv – the far northeastern island of Franz Josef Land in the Russian Arctic – was no longer stable. Another island was formed there by the ice and sea changes.
Also confirmed during the Northern Fleet expedition was the gap between Littrow and Hall islands, which are no longer connected. Like much of the region formed from glaciers and ice sheets, the melting in the Arctic means they’re now separated by a strait.
The Russian expedition held deep meaning for participants who retraced steps of historic explorers, including Britain’s Frederick Jackson, who first walked the coast of Alexandra Land in 1897. They visited an abandoned outpost on Pakhtusova Island not seen since the 1950s and a polar station destroyed by Germany during World War II. They looked for traces of historical sites.
Yet it’s the future that Russia, with its sights on strategic control of the Arctic, is looking toward. The expedition was the longest non-ice class cruise in the Franz Josef Land archipelago, and at the highest-ever latitude, with the crew mapping routes and measuring sea depths.
The ministry said the purpose was to gauge the potential for shipping opportunities and clarify Russia’s territorial waters as the Arctic changes. Soon, Russia will update its maps with discoveries that raise both climate and geopolitical concerns over shipping in the Arctic.
China, the United States, Canada, and Arctic-facing European nations are among those racing to stake their claims on Arctic resources revealed by the ice loss – the U.S. released a new Arctic defense strategy in June with China and Russia in mind – but Russia is still leading the way.