Last weekend, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin sparked a minor diplomatic crisis when he decided to visit the Norwegian island of Svalbard. Blacklisted from entering most of Europe due to sanctions related to Russian actions in Ukraine, Rogozin stopped on the Arctic island en route to a Russian scientific mission on the North Pole. He was accompanied by Orthodox priests and a massive icon of Jesus Christ. He later took to Twitter and proclaimed, “the Arctic is a Russian Mecca.”
In the last year, Moscow has upped its military presence in the region, increasing sorties by fighter jets and opening …read more
Source: Foreign Policy
