United States and Russia in the Arctic Zone

A very interesting article by Newsweek, titled “Russia Claims 463,000 Square Miles of Arctic Territory”, August 2015. According to the article Russia claims an area of 463 thousands square miles in the Arctic Ocean, but the United Nations, together with the other Arctic countries i.e. USA, Canada, Norway and Denmark they do accept the Russian claims. Note that Greenland belongs to Denmark, and that’s why Denmark has claims in the Arctic Ocean.

On the map you can see with blots the land and sea oil and natural gas reserves of the region. It is estimated that approximately 25% of the undiscovered oil and natural gas reserves are located in the Arctic Ocean. I guess that’s because it is very difficult to explore the region, due to the icy waters. According to Newsweek the Russian part of Greenpeace claims that Russia and Norway are trying to transform the Arctic Ocean into a new Saudi Arabia.

For the arms race between the United States and Russia in the Arctic you can read another Newsweek article, titled “The new Cold War: US and Russia's race for the Arctic”, July 2015.

http://europe.newsweek.com/new-cold-war-us-russias-race-arctic-329458

For the first Newsweek article see

http://europe.newsweek.com/russia-claims-463000-square-miles-arctic-territory-331201