While serving as an infantry battalion and brigade operations officer in Alaska, I learned that the Arctic is among the most unforgiving battlefields on earth.Aircraft can deliver soldiers to remote areas, but they cannot improvise roads, fuel or supply units once the fighting begins.
In extreme cold, poor preparation kills soldiers as surely as enemy fire.That lesson returned as I studied recent satellite imagery from Russia's far north.Advanced air-defense systems are disappearing from established Arctic positions even as Russia pours concrete for barracks and depots closer to Finland and Norway.The two trends look contradictory.
They are not.Russian President Vladimir Putin is operating on two clocks: sustaining today’s war effort while building options for a confrontation on NATO's northern flank once the Ukraine conflict slows.TWO ICEBREAKERS HEADED TO ALASKA AS US COMBATS RUSSIAN, CHINESE INFLUENCE IN ARCTICStart with what Moscow is giving up.
Near the Rogachevo airfield on Novaya Zemlya, Russia's Arctic archipelago, most air-defense assets at a longstanding missile position have been removed.Farther south, roughly two dozen S-300 and S-400 systems have disappeared from sites around Severodvinsk, the White Sea city where Russia builds and repairs nuclear submarines.
Some protection may remain, but the reduction at these two vital locations is unmistakable.Russia is not abandoning the Arctic.
It is accepting greater risk there.The Moscow Oil Refinery in Kapotnya burns after being hit during Ukraine’s June 18, 2026, drone attack on the Russian capital.(East2West)Katarzyna Zysk, a professor at the Norwegian Institute for Defence Studies, says the removals reflect "a growing mismatch" between the targets Russia must protect and its available launchers, interceptors and trained personnel.UKRAINE UNLEASHES MORE THAN 400 DRONES NEAR MOSCOW IN ONE OF WAR'S BIGGEST ATTACKSMoscow apparently judges that NATO is unlikely to launch an imminent large-scale attack ...