Russia's Arctic Oil Shortcut Runs Into a Wall of Ice
A group of sanctioned Russian tankers dropped anchor some 1,300 kilometers north of the Arctic Circle in July after getting stuck and hunkered down for a long wait in the frozen waters at the…
RFE/RL journalists report the news in 21 countries where a free press is banned by the government or not fully established. We provide what many…
A group of sanctioned Russian tankers dropped anchor some 1,300 kilometers north of the Arctic Circle in July after getting stuck and hunkered down for a long wait in the frozen waters at the top of the world. Help from two nuclear-powered icebreakers was several days' voyage away.
The ships were stuck near the Vilkitsky Strait, a 55-kilometer-wide choke point between the coast of northern Siberia and Bolshevik Island, on Russia's Northern Sea Route (NSR) to China.
The Kremlin has heavily invested in the promise that retreating Arctic sea ice opens up a previously impassable route -- one that is farther from the reach of Ukrainian drone attacks or European naval interdiction of shadow fleet vessels.
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