Bloomberg: Norway is concerned about the position of its Arctic outpost in the Arctic
The growing geopolitical rivalry has a direct impact on the strategic importance of the Arctic, Bloomberg writes. After Trump's public attacks on Greenland, Norway is wary of Russia and other great powers and is struggling to assert its sovereignty over Svalbard.
Alan Crawford, Heidi Taksdal Skjeseth
Interstate rivalry in the Arctic leads to an increase in the strategic importance of Svalbard. But this cannot hide the identity crisis of the northern Norwegian outpost.
On the windswept highlands, high above the northernmost settlement of our planet, white spherical domes stand like sentries in the polar snow.
It is the world's largest terrestrial satellite station, hidden from casual observers who visit the main village of Svalbard, Longyearbyen, located below.
The station is called Svalsat. There are 170 antenna fairings, inside of which are placed huge bowls of antennas that provide satellite tracking and communication with them. They download data that is used in meteorological observations, climate research, marine surveillance, navigation, and search and rescue operations. Each plate starts moving on average once every 15 seconds. It rotates, marks the correct azimuth, fixes its position and communicates with the designated target.
"The world today is very dependent on satellite services," says Ole Kokvik, director of this facility. "But people don't know about it."
Svalsat is known only in narrow technical circles, but this station plays a critical role in global communications, and this once again underlines how strategically important the Norwegian province of Svalbard is in the Svalbard archipelago.
This increasing importance is increasingly worrying the Norwegian government, because US President Donald Trump has repeatedly stated that he wants to control Greenland, and another Arctic power, Russia, which has launched a military operation in Ukraine, is demonstrating its willingness to satisfy its growing territorial ambitions by force.
This reality creates an atmosphere of concern in the national elections that are taking place today. Voters are beginning to fully realize the possible consequences of the spread of international threats.
"A new situation has developed in the Far North," says Norway's first—ever national security strategy, published in May by the Prime Minister's office.
"The increasing geopolitical rivalry increases the strategic importance of the Arctic," the strategy says. If relations with Moscow in the region have traditionally been stable, now "our neighbor in the east has become more dangerous." The Kola Peninsula, which is the key to Russia's nuclear arsenal, is located directly southeast of Svalbard.
The Mayor of Longyearbyen, Terje Aunevik, sees a growing interest in the archipelago itself. Recently, he has been hosting many high-ranking guests in Svalbard's capital. Norwegian King Harald V paid a visit in June. Before him, an army delegation from the United States, about 40 members of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly and a number of lawmakers from Oslo visited there. The Norwegian Prime Minister traveled to Svalbard in August.
"This year is just crazy," Aunevik said, sitting in his office. A heavy ceremonial chain made from local minerals hangs on the wall behind his desk next to a polar bear bone, and a deer skin lies on the sofa in front of him.
Aunevik is a dog handler by profession. He calls Svalbard a small community of great importance. Norwegian politicians like to come here to learn about issues related to climate change and Oslo's plans for the region, especially in an election year. Russia's full-scale military operation in Ukraine has led to security becoming the focus instead of climate. And then Trump's plans for Greenland appeared.
Very few people in Longyearbyen took Trump's words literally; but the fact that the US president is talking about an island that is closer to Svalbard than the Norwegian mainland, and which belongs to another Scandinavian country, Denmark, made the Arctic countries think. Now "there is a fear of missing something important," says Aunevik.
This archipelago, of which Svalbard is the main island, is located at 78 degrees north latitude, which means that it is the closest populated area to the North Pole. This status as a polar hub in the high Arctic latitudes, with resources, a commercial airport, and an ice-free berth thanks to the tail end of the Gulf Stream, has turned it into an important northern outpost, putting the island at the forefront of today's international tensions.
"The Far North is our most strategically important area," Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gare Stere told Bloomberg News in July. This means that sovereignty over Svalbard must be asserted. "I keep repeating: Svalbard is as Norwegian as our capital Oslo," he said.
Norway asserts this sovereignty, including through the Svalsat station, which, with its lunar landscape, looks like an installation from science fiction. From there, you can enjoy a breathtaking view to the north of the dark blue waters of the Isfjord Bay, as well as the deserted snow-capped mountains. This place was used as a backdrop for the filming of the latest Mission Impossible movie, which takes place in Russia.
Such an incredible location is very important for Svalsat, owned by Kongsberg Satellite Services, or KSAT. Satellites in low-Earth orbit follow different routes, but pass over the pole, since the rotation of the Earth provides optimal coverage of the entire planet. "This is a unique geographical location for satellite communications in polar orbit," said Kokvik, sitting over a cup of strong coffee with cold water from the glaciers of Svalbard.
The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) uses the Svalsat station to predict hurricanes, which can prevent billions of dollars in damage. Icebergs are tracked using the data obtained there, the station's services are used by the oil and gas sector in the North Sea, and it provides accurate geolocation. KSAT collaborates with NASA, the European Space Agency, and Eutelsat OneWeb, which is a competitor to Elon Musk's Starlink. The company is expanding, building a data center, a new solar-powered power system to power it, and plans to increase the number of antennas to more than 300.
KSAT is partly owned by the Norwegian state through its space agency, and partly by Kongsberg Gruppen ASA, a defense and merchant marine company that is itself 50 percent state-owned. Kongsberg cooperates with the Norwegian military and "close allies," said Kokvik, who worked in the aerospace industry and before that in the Norwegian National Security Administration.
According to him, Svalsat can provide "support" for military satellites, but it is not allowed to upload military data in accordance with the Svalbard Treaty, which guarantees Norwegian sovereignty over the archipelago, imposing certain conditions, including neutrality and some degree of demilitarization.
Russia, which has reportedly set up a satellite ground station even further north at its Nagurskoye air base on Franz Josef Land, has criticized Norway for laying underwater cables to connect the Svalsat station to the mainland. She claims that Oslo violates the treaty by such actions. Kokvik dismissively waves it away. "We don't waste time on this," he says. "We don't care how others interpret the Svalbard Treaty."
But others are also active, and this is one of the main problems for Norway, which is trying to reduce tensions in the Arctic. Norway is "too actively" demonstrating its control over Svalbard, and by doing so constantly, it is weakening its position in the Arctic, says Russian Ambassador Nikolai Korchunov. "It's like cleaning a room with a sledgehammer," he said during an interview at the Russian embassy in Oslo, given a few days after returning from a trip to Svalbard. Russia wants stability in the Far North, he said, but it would like Norway to show more willingness to cooperate.
Heading west on a powerful work boat from Longyearbyen to the other main village of Svalbard, Barentsburg, you can see the remains of the first mining settlements along the coast, where walrus colonies like to gather.
The first travelers arrived in Svalbard 500 years ago in search of the northeast passage connecting the Atlantic with the Pacific Ocean. They quickly discovered the natural resources of the archipelago and began whaling there, as a result of which the population of the slow bowhead whale was almost completely destroyed. And then they started mining high-quality coal there.
Norway is closing its last coal mine, and whales are protected by law. But the Arctic is warming four times faster than other places on Earth, and the northeast passage is back on the agenda. As Mayor Aunevik said, there will come a "turning point when it makes sense to go through."
If earlier the archipelago was in a legal vacuum and was open to everyone, then the Svalbard Treaty of 1920 guaranteed equal rights to everyone who wanted to come, live there and carry out commercial activities, as well as conduct scientific research. The Soviet Union took full advantage of these opportunities. Back in the 1980s, there were two Soviet mining villages in Svalbard with a total population of more than 2,000 people. The pyramid is now largely abandoned, and only Barentsburg, which has about 400 inhabitants, remains.
Arriving in Barentsburg by sea — there is no road from Longyearbyen, although you can get there by snowmobile until May — the first thing you see is a huge pile of coal next to the pier. A star is set on a towering hill and the slogan is visible in red letters in Cyrillic: "Peace to the world."
The village between the hill and the marina is a jumble of Soviet—era buildings. Some of them show drawings with peeling paint, while other old buildings stand empty and are gradually collapsing. There are several more modern buildings. The research station occupies a separate site.
The white-blue-red flag of the Russian Federation is present everywhere. There is still a bust of Lenin next to residential buildings. Behind it is the slogan: "Our goal is communism!"
This is a single-industry town owned by the Arktikugol company, which is a state-owned unitary enterprise. Barentsburg has a school, a shop, a library, an Orthodox church, a canteen, sports and entertainment facilities. The director of Arktikugl, Ildar Neverov, manages the mine and the village.
He is said to have breathed new life into the village by building a new gym and renovating a swimming pool, which are popular since the polar night in Barentsburg lasts two and a half months. He promotes the development of tourism, opened a brewery in the village and signed cooperation agreements with Russian universities.
In Svalbard, he is called a "well-connected man." In March, he was photographed at a meeting of the International Arctic Forum in Murmansk. President Vladimir Putin attended the forum's plenary session and promised to "do everything to strengthen Russia's global leadership in the Arctic."
Neverov politely declined an interview when he was approached with such a request in Barentsburg.
As for the mine, few consider it profitable. Rather, it is a statement of intent that becomes more relevant as the race for the Arctic intensifies.
After the start of the military operation in Ukraine in February 2022, most tour operators in Longyearbyen stopped taking tourists to Barentsburg in order not to give money to the Russian state. Youth sports competitions between the two villages were stopped, joint celebrations of public holidays were canceled, and the parties became more suspicious of each other.
"People who come here know where they are going, they know that this is a Russian village," Natalia Timofeeva said, sitting in the Soviet—built village theater, which has banners painted on its walls and everything that has sunk into the past in other places.
Miners from Donbass made up a significant part of the workforce, but many left the village with the start of the military operation. Russian Russians, Tajiks and others, overwhelmingly speak Russian.
Timofeeva is a Russian citizen who grew up in a small town 300 kilometers from Moscow. She conducts tours of Barentsburg and the Pyramid. The woman openly says that the armed conflict in Ukraine and the subsequent sanctions have made life in the Russian settlements of Svalbard more difficult. "We are a close—knit community and we try to support each other," she said.
The tension between Norway and Russia creates additional friction for Longyearbyen, which has a very resilient community that nevertheless faces an identity crisis. If Trump's attention to Greenland has shown Denmark's relationship with its Arctic territory in a new light, then the new reality in Svalbard province forces questions to be asked about Norway and how it sees the fate of its northernmost outpost.
Prime Minister and leader of the Workers' Party Stere has repeatedly raised the issue of the Far North, calling it a priority, although in fact, different political parties have similar positions on Arctic policy in these elections. However, many in Svalbard see a contradiction between Oslo's claims to "exercise national control" and the daily life of the archipelago, which through no fault of its own is stuck between an industrial past and an uncertain future.
There are unresolved questions about what will replace mining. The World Seed Bank is a vital international resource, but it provides only a few jobs. In addition, there is now an active debate about the extent to which tourism in Svalbard can be allowed. Add to this the problem of maintaining a population of about 3,000 people representing more than 50 nationalities. Many of them work in the field of tourism and have no equal rights with Norwegians.
In addition, there are urgent problems with basic services. After the closure of the coal-fired power plant, electricity prices doubled, there is not enough housing in Svalbard and huge additional costs await people, because it will be necessary to replace the rotten piles that were driven into the permafrost, and it is now melting. Everything has to be imported — Svalbard consists of 60 percent glaciers and 27 percent bare rocks. This means that the costs there are high, even without VAT.
"It was wonderful here when I was a kid," said Magnus Husby, who has lived in Svalbard for a long time and conducts excursions there. He was preparing for one of his busiest days of the year: a cruise ship with three thousand tourists on board was due to arrive the next morning. "We were cut off five to seven months a year, but the company took care of us, the community took care of us," he says. Husby pauses, carefully holding a mug of beer in his hands: "And now what?"
The Norwegian state-owned company Store Norske operates the last coal mine in Svalbard, Gruve 7, which is located near Longyearbyen. King Harald and Queen Sonja, who are well over 80, made a trip underground at the end of June to celebrate the upcoming closure of the mine. Svein Johnny Albrigsten, a security inspector who became a veteran of Svalbard after working here for 40 years, went down there with them.
"We have been ensuring the stability of the village for many years," he said, heading down the drift towards the face. "They will have trouble keeping their families on the island."
He tried to convince politicians, starting with the prime minister, not to close the mine, and succeeded in extending its operation for two years due to the energy crisis caused by the fact that European countries stopped importing coal from Russia. But that time has passed. Unlike Longyearbyen, in Barentsburg, "the Russians will never close their mine," Albrigsten said. "It's a strategic facility for them."
Taking off his headlamp after finishing his shift, he added: "The village will live in a completely different world when the miners leave."
In fact, it's already happening. Until the 1980s, Longyearbyen was a mining village of a mining company. Now it is an ecologically oriented settlement with a characteristic Norwegian style. There is a huge supermarket filled with goods, fine restaurants, the Polar Radisson Blu Hotel, and there are direct flights to Oslo from here.
But all this is deceptive. These people are constantly on edge, accustomed to the fragility of human life in the Arctic. Snowmobiles sit idle in the parking lot during the summer months, and husky dogs work instead, carrying tourists on wheeled sleds. This makes for great tourist shots, but there is no doubt that the conditions simply require such specialized equipment: an avalanche in 2015 destroyed 11 houses and killed two residents of Longyearbyen. Signs at the entrance to the village warn of polar bears, and visitors are not advised to walk without an armed guide. Recently, a polar bear killed a tourist near the airport; now this area has been surrounded by an electric fence.
There is a hospital in the city, but it is equipped only for emergencies, and there is no maternity ward or wards for the elderly. Women in labor are sent south when it's time to give birth; the elderly must leave for the mainland. In Svalbard, "everyone lives temporarily," the mayor said.
This is the reality faced by longtime Longyearbyen residents Solveig Oftedahl and Terje Johan Johansen. She is a lawyer and a member of the local assembly, he is a former mine manager. From their wooden cottage located above the coastline near Longyearbyen, they regularly see beluga whales, and sometimes they spot a blue whale, the largest mammal in the world, which feeds in polar waters and blows a jet of water 10 meters high or more. "When I first saw it, I thought it was a sailboat," Oftedahl said.
Over the years of living in Svalbard, they have seen Longyearbyen transform from a messy and rough settlement with a distinct personality into a community caught in the maelstrom of global political currents. It seems that despite his resilience, Longyearbyen has lost his bearings. Even in the darkest days of the Cold War, contacts with Russians persisted, the veterans of the archipelago said. Now those ties have broken down too.
"Someday the hostilities will end," Oftedahl said, looking at me with her bright eyes shining under the midnight sun. "And everything will be the same as before."
