The arctic does not free Russia from being a continental, rather than maritime, power. Their geopolitics and imperial identity is dominated by mountain and river and plains borders, and destabilizing or annexing the powers at their borders. The arctic is inaccessible except for some baltic access dominated by maritime nations.
It is way less dumb than you think it is. As long as climate change is not doing something about it, Russia’s access to international waters is a lot more compromised than many think. Russia’s main ports have access to the Baltic Sea and the Black Sea. In both cases other countries can block access of Russian ships to the Atlantic. Other than that, the only ports with all year round usable access to international waters is in Russia’s far east (Vladivostok primarily), which can compensate a bit but not nearly replace the ports in the European parts of Russia.
But in relation to this statement, it is not wrong. The large coastline in the north does not really provide contacts except for polar bears, the east is a completely different society, which leaves only the Baltic coast and a few, summer-only harbors in the north and the black sea.
I think dumb is a better word. Russia has a crazy amount of coastlines.
The arctic does not free Russia from being a continental, rather than maritime, power. Their geopolitics and imperial identity is dominated by mountain and river and plains borders, and destabilizing or annexing the powers at their borders. The arctic is inaccessible except for some baltic access dominated by maritime nations.
I think what they’re really trying to talk about are port cities. That’s where mingling and cultural exchange happen. Also lively bar scenes.
Frozen, tundra coastlines. It lacks warm water ports, which is why it invaded Ukraine for Crimea in 2014.
The UK on the other hand is nothing but warm water ports. I think their point stands for at least modern Russia.
Right up until the AMOC collapses
It is way less dumb than you think it is. As long as climate change is not doing something about it, Russia’s access to international waters is a lot more compromised than many think. Russia’s main ports have access to the Baltic Sea and the Black Sea. In both cases other countries can block access of Russian ships to the Atlantic. Other than that, the only ports with all year round usable access to international waters is in Russia’s far east (Vladivostok primarily), which can compensate a bit but not nearly replace the ports in the European parts of Russia.
But in relation to this statement, it is not wrong. The large coastline in the north does not really provide contacts except for polar bears, the east is a completely different society, which leaves only the Baltic coast and a few, summer-only harbors in the north and the black sea.