Russia’s fresh battle greeting, known as the Project 23550 Ivan Papanin, has embarked on stock sea trials, signaling Russia’s intensified proper focus on the Arctic amid an emerging New Cold War.
The greeting is reportedly armed, capable of carrying cruise missiles, and was reported by The War Zone this quarter.
The vehicle, constructed at the Admiralty Shipyards in St Petersburg, was originally scheduled for commissioning in 2023 but has faced disruptions, largely due to the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, The War Zone statement said.
The Ivan Papanin’s arsenal includes a 76mm AK-176MA weapons and can be equipped with intermodal missiles for Klub and Kalibr cruise missiles, which would significantly improve its battle skills.
Russia has a growing fleet of about 40 icebreakers and ships with the special Project 23550 group, which was created specifically for battle and breaking through snow up to 5 feet wet.
Russia’s addition of the Ivan Papanin to its icebreaker fleet is a result of its more considerable interests in the Arctic and its military strategy, which are mainly driven by complex and interconnected economic and security issues.
In a March 2020 content for the Center for Strategic and International Studies ( CSIS), Heather Conley and other authors make mention of Russia’s military presence in the Arctic as a means of enhancing land safety by preventing foreign incursions as the place attracts more foreign investment, secures Russia’s financial future, and provides a staging area for power projection in the North Atlantic.
Conley and others claim that Russia views the Northern Sea Route ( NSR ), a 5, 600 kilometer long waterway that runs from the Bering Strait to the Kara Sea, as a strategically important internal waterway. They point out, in contrast, that the majority of the international community views the NSR as a global transit.
Beyond controlling sea lines of communication such as the NSR, John Grade mentions in a March 2024 US Naval Institute ( USNI ) article that the Arctic holds 13 % of the world’s undiscovered oil reserves, 30 % of undiscovered natural gas and US$ 1 trillion worth of valuable minerals like palladium, cobalt and nickel, which are in demand for various high- tech industries.
As a result of global warming, those resources are causing a global search for them. Canada, the US and Scandinavian countries have a substantial Arctic presence. China officially designated itself as a “near-arctic state” in 2018, setting the stage for intense power competition in the previously remote and inaccessible frozen region.  ,
Grade notes that Russia applies a” first to market” strategy by granting international maritime traffic access to claims over increasingly open waterways. In line with that, Conley and others point out that Russia has restricted the passage of foreign warships without a 45-day notice and the government’s approval and that it has given bureaucratic control of the NSR to Rosatom, its nuclear power agency.
Regarding Russia’s militarization of the Arctic, Grade claims that Russia has stationed long-range cruise missiles capable of hitting Canadian and US targets, its bombers testing northern approaches ‘ defenses, and the deployment of a cruise missile submarine off its Pacific coast.
Further, Michael Paul and Göran Swistek, in a February 2022 Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik ( SWP ) paper, mention that Russia is prioritizing the expansion and modernization of its Northern Fleet, which aims to project power beyond its “brown” coastal waters into the Atlantic and Pacific.
According to Paul and Swistek, the Northern Fleet is pivotal to Russia’s nuclear deterrence, economic interests and resource protection, making it the most significant military presence in the Arctic. Its upgrade to an autonomous military district in January 2021 underscores the Arctic’s significance in Russia’s national defense strategy.
They mention developments that demonstrate the strategic importance of the Arctic to Russia’s interests, such as the addition of new military installations, the demonstration of thick ice-capable nuclear submarines, and the addition of Russia’s contentious “doomsday” Poseidon nuclear-armed underwater drone to the fleet’s arsenal.
Janis Kluge and Michael Paul state in a SWP paper from November that the Northern Fleet’s top priority is to defend Russia’s nuclear ballistic missile submarines ( SSBN), which make up two-thirds of its naval nuclear deterrent.
In a conflict, the fleet would defend its SSBNs and establish a second-strike capability by blocking hostile forces from the Russian Arctic while defending its SSBNs.
They point out that while Russia maintains a defensive position in the Arctic, it is prepared for an uprising in the event of a conflict, including potential offensive operations to defend the bastion and possibly occupy parts of northern Scandinavia.
However, the Ukraine war may have significantly impacted Russia’s Arctic military posture. Russia’s strategic deterrent posture may not have been affected by the ongoing conflict, but its implications may have a drawn-out effect at both operational and tactical levels.
Colin Wall and Njord Wegge mention in a January 2023 CSIS article that Russia’s Arctic military branches, particularly the Northern Fleet, maintain a credible second-strike nuclear capability despite the enormous material and human costs of the Ukraine war.
Sanctions may have an impact on Russia’s defense industry in the long run, potentially lowering the Northern Fleet’s formidability in five to ten years, but Wall and Wegge note that while Russia’s short-term threats to the West via naval and air assets remain largely unaffected.
In particular, they say that Russia’s scarcity of precision munitions could deter offensive measures against Arctic NATO allies. They point out that replacing the short-range Pantsir missile systems that were lost in Ukraine may pose challenges, even though Russia’s air defense capability is still present.
However, Wall and Wegge point out that Russia’s increasing use of “hybrid warfare” strategies in the Arctic suggests that Russia may favor hybrid tactics to exert influence and create uncertainty given that Russia has fewer conventional military forces there.
In a paper from the European Leadership Network in August 2023, Katarina Kertysova and Gabriella Gricius point out that since February 2022, Russia has used four trends in its hybrid warfare strategies in the Arctic, including a rise in cybercrime, intrusive infrastructure interference, espionage, and criminal activity.
Kertysova and Gricius say that cyber operations, notably distributed denial of service ( DDOS ) attacks, have surged across Arctic nations, targeting governmental systems and electoral processes.
They also say critical infrastructure, such as undersea cables and pipelines, has also faced increased threats, with incidents like the Nord Stream pipeline sabotage highlighting vulnerabilities.
According to Kertysova and Gricius, espionage efforts have increased, with accusations of Russian spying in territorial waters using civilian vessels. Additionally, they say criminal activities have emerged as a new tool in Russia’s arsenal, further complicating the Arctic’s fast- shifting security landscape.