Russia to send largest military force to the Arctic since the Cold War amid fears Putin is plotting to seize the entire region and claim its oil and gas reserves
Russia's build-up is the biggest since the 1991 Soviet fall
RUSSIA is pouring troops, ships and missiles into the Arctic - and it is feared Russian President Vladimir Putin is trying to secure the frozen region's vast oil reserves.
Moscow is again on the march in the Arctic and building new nuclear icebreakers to plough through vast fields of frost.
Russia has butted heads over the region with Canada, the United States, and Norway as well as newcomer China - and this latest move could stoke tensions.
NATO and Russia are already clashing. Just days ago Russia mocked the Royal Navy after its own ships romped through the English Channel.
Interviews with officials and military analysts and reviews of government documents show Russia's build-up is the biggest since the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union and will, in some areas, give Moscow more military power than even the feared Red Army once had.
The Arctic is estimated to hold more oil and gas reserves than Saudi Arabia and Moscow has been sniffing around the vast wealth for years.
Vladimir Blinov, a guide on board the Soviet icebreaker Lenin, now a museum in Murmansk, said: "History is repeating itself."
"Back then (in the 1950s) it was the height of the Cold War and the United States was leading in some areas.
"But we beat the Americans and built the world's first nuclear ship (the Lenin). The situation today is similar."
Under President Vladimir Putin, Moscow is rushing to re-open abandoned Soviet military, air and radar bases on remote Arctic islands and build new ones as it pushes ahead with a claim to almost half a million square miles of the Arctic.
It regularly releases pictures of its troops training in white fatigues, wielding assault rifles as they zip along on sleighs pulled by reindeer.
The Arctic is estimated to hold oil and gas reserves equivalent to 412 billion barrels of oil, about 22 per cent of the worlds undiscovered oil and gas.
Low oil prices and Western sanctions imposed over Moscow's actions in Ukraine mean new offshore Arctic projects have for now been mothballed, but the Kremlin is playing a longer game.
It is building three nuclear icebreakers, including the world's largest, to bolster its fleet of around 40 breakers, six of which are nuclear.
SO WHO DOES OWN THE ARCTIC?
Since the seventeenth century a 'freedom of the seas' doctrine was accepted by most countries. It limited a nation's rights and jurisdiction to a small sliver of sea along the nation's coast and the rest of the ocean could be used by anyone. Concerns over fishing, mining and advances in oil drilling led to nations - the first being the US in 1945 - to start claiming resources. In 1982 the UN presented The Law of the Sea Treaty, which grants significant undersea portions of the Arctic to Canada, the United States, Russia, Norway and Denmark, in a bid to address the confusion. These nations were then able to exploit the natural resources up to 200 miles from their shoreline. They can also extend their claim up to 350 miles from shore for any area that is proven to be a part of their continental shelf, a shallow underwater landmass that extends from a nation's borders. However, some nations' claims overlap or are disputed, leading to tensions and even military build-up.
No other country has a nuclear breaker fleet, used to clear channels for military and civilian ships.
Russia's Northern Fleet, based near Murmansk in the Kola Bay's icy waters, is also due to get its own icebreaker, its first, and two ice-capable corvettes armed with cruise missiles.
"Under (Soviet leader Mikhail) Gorbachev and (Russian President Boris) Yeltsin, our Arctic border areas were stripped bare," said Professor Pavel Makarevich, a member of the Russian Geographical Society. "Now they are being restored."
US Defense Secretary James Mattis told his confirmation hearing this month it was "not to our advantage to leave any part of the world" to others.
That poses a potential dilemma for President Donald Trump, who wants to repair US-Russia ties and team up with Moscow in Syria rather than get sucked into an Arctic arms race.
This month 300 US Marines landed in Norway this month for a six-month deployment, the first time since World War Two that foreign troops have been allowed to be stationed there.
And with memories of Russia's 2014 annexation of Ukraine's Crimea still fresh, NATO is watching closely. Six of its members held an exercise in the region in 2015.
"The modernisation of Arctic forces and of Arctic military infrastructure is taking place at an unprecedented pace not seen even in Soviet times," Mikhail Barabanov, editor-in-chief of Moscow Defense Brief, told Reuters.
He said two special Arctic brigades had been set up, something the USSR never had, and that there were plans to form a third as well as special Arctic coastal defence divisions.
"Russia's military activity in the Arctic is a bit provocative," said Barabanov. "It could trigger an arms race."
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