The sud­den sur­fa­cing of the powerful Rus­si­an poli­ti­ci­an Dmit­ry Rogo­zin, vice pre­mier and lea­der of the Rus­si­an government’s new Arc­tic Com­mis­si­on, stir­red Nor­we­gi­an offi­ci­als up. Rogo­zin is on an EU sanc­tion list and not wel­co­me in Nor­way, as was sub­se­quent­ly made clear by the Nor­we­gi­an govern­ment.

Rogo­zin pro­vo­ked the Nor­we­gi­an govern­ment by men­tio­ning that the Nor­we­gi­an sove­reig­n­ty is limi­t­ed in Sval­bard (the Spits­ber­gen Trea­ty makes undis­pu­ta­b­ly clear that Nor­way has full sove­reig­n­ty over the Spits­ber­gen archi­pe­la­go, but it does inde­ed put some limits to the exe­cu­ti­on of the sove­reig­n­ty). Accor­ding to Rogo­zin, nobo­dy could be kept from visi­ting Sval­bard.

It is not known how Rogo­zin, who made his arri­val known via twit­ter, arri­ved at the air­port at Lon­gye­ar­by­en, but it is safe to assu­me that he did not tra­vel trough main­land Nor­way. Rogo­zin soon con­tin­ued to the Rus­si­an drift ice sta­ti­on Bar­neo near the north pole, whe­re he made fur­ther pro­vo­ca­ti­ve comm­ents in an inter­view to Rus­si­an sta­te TV: “Last year, we had the his­to­ri­cal reuni­fi­ca­ti­on of Sevas­to­pol and the Cri­mea. This year, we pre­sent a new view and new powerful stress on the deve­lo­p­ment of the Arc­tic. Basi­cal­ly, its is all about the same …” and he con­tin­ued: Rus­sia is now “start­ing to get more con­scious about ter­ri­to­ry, its inte­rests and bor­ders”. Rus­sia is known as natio­na­list and expan­sio­nist.

Norway’s for­eign minis­ter Bør­ge Bren­de did not lea­ve any doubts that “peo­p­le on the sanc­tions list, peo­p­le that have been cen­tral in brea­ching inter­na­tio­nal law in Ukrai­ne, are not wel­co­me to the main­land or to Sval­bard”.

It is, howe­ver, unli­kely that this will make of an impres­si­on on the Rus­si­an vice pre­mier.

Source: Barents­ob­ser­ver