Military expert: Washington and NATO have been militarizing the Arctic for nearly 10 years

Military expert Alexander Stepanov confirmed that the United States and NATO countries have been militarizing the Arctic for nearly 10 years with the aim of providing military infrastructure for countries bordering Russia.

The chief researcher at the Latin American Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences explained in a special article for TASS on the issue of recreating the Moscow and Leningrad military districts that “the creation of new military districts is not a radical measure, but rather a response to a real situation developing in this region.”

He pointed out that “the process of militarizing the Arctic by NATO, and above all the United States, has been going on for nearly 10 years, and all of these operations were initiated and launched with the aim of saturating the Russian border region with military infrastructure. Here we are talking first about the northern European countries.” And to create the optimal conditions for their entry into NATO. These countries were not in this situation, and of course in the first place we are talking about Finland and Sweden.”

Stepanov stated that these tasks were solved within the framework of political and diplomatic maneuvers, as well as systematic work to create an appropriate information background. "As a result, Finland and Sweden have become full members of NATO, providing the legal basis for the next step in developing the bloc's military infrastructure in the northeast," he noted.

On February 26, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree on the re-establishment of the Moscow and Leningrad military districts. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu explained that this decision was taken due to the threats associated with NATO's expansion to the east and the establishment of a new military infrastructure for the alliance near the Russian border.

As stated by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, the country will deploy additional weapons in response to Finland and Sweden joining NATO.

Stockholm and Helsinki submitted their applications to join NATO on May 18, 2022, Finland joined the alliance on April 4, 2023, and Sweden completed this process on March 7, 2024.