NATO creating new Arctic front against Russia – Lavrov

The bloc’s members are increasingly treating the Far North as another arena for containing Moscow and its partners NATO is seeking to turn the Arctic into a new “hotbed” of tensions with its active military buildup in the region, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has warned.

The bloc’s activities have sowed an atmosphere of distrust and it is risking a potentially dangerous armed confrontation not only with Moscow but with other nations as well, he warned in an article published by Arctic.ru on Monday.

The US-led military bloc ramped up its activities in the Far North earlier this year by launching the Arctic Sentry initiative.

The move was touted as a response to US President Donald Trump’s effort to annex the Danish autonomous territory of Greenland on the grounds that it was allegedly under threat from Russia and China.

Both Moscow and Beijing have repeatedly dismissed the accusations, with China arguing that the US was merely using the claims as a pretext for its own military buildup in the Arctic.

Russia has also maintained that it would defend its interests in the Arctic, despite having no stake in the feud over Greenland.

Read more Lavrov outlines Arctic ‘challenges and opportunities’ (FULL ARTICLE) In his Monday article, Lavrov stated that Russia is mainly interested in “preserving the Arctic as an area of peace and cooperation” while accusing NATO of “driving the region towards militarization.” “Intensive military preparations are underway in close proximity to our northern borders.

NATO is conducting large-scale military exercises involving non-regional countries and introducing new components of its command-and-control system,” the minister said.

Back in February, the NATO nations held drills focused on Greenland and the broader Arctic, involving Swedish and Danish warplanes in particular.

In March, the bloc staged a massive military exercise in Norway and Finland – two Nordic nations bordering Russia – involving a total of 32,500 troops from 14 member states.

The troops trained on the territory of both countries, as well as “at sea and in the air,” under “harsh, Arctic conditions,” in what the Norwegian Armed Forces described as the nation’s “largest military exercise in 2026.” Read more NATO increasing military presence in Arctic Last week, US, UK and Norwegian forces kickstarted another drill on the Norwegian island of Jan Mayen.

The operation is aimed at integrating “multinational sensors, command-and-control nodes and precision fires into a joint kill web,” according to a US Marine Corps release.