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Easy. Amount of Arctic (shelf) belong to country calculated from coast length. And any adequate person will agree, in modern world countries need access to sea,
by simne 2y ago
Easy. Amount of Arctic (shelf) belong to country calculated from coast length.
And any adequate person will agree, in modern world countries need access to sea, not to ice.
Ukraine have strategy geography to limit access of Russia to black sea, so for Russia free access stay only on Baltic sea and far east (Vladivostok and Kuril islands, too far to be effectively used by European part of country).
Now, from international law, Russia control near half of Arctic region, and other divided by weak counties - Canada, Denmark (via their control of Greenland).
If US will gain formal juridical control of Greenland (or hypothetical of Canada), they will automatically gain large part of Arctic region and will directly compete against Russia.
Add Canada as new US State, is not a subject now, but for Greenland things are unclear.
- ttepasse 2y agoRussia has a long stretch of Black Sea coast, including harbours at Novorossiysk and Sochi. Before 2014 there were plans to relocate the Black Sea fleet from Crimea to Sochi. One of the surprising things about the Ukraine war was the successful sea war by Ukraine, forcing the Black Sea fleet outside of Ukraine’s range. But I think with "strategic geography" meant peace time. In war time Russia would have problems with three other NATO members on the Black Sea and above all with the Bosporus.
- simne 2y ago> harbours at Novorossiysk and Sochi I must admit harbour at Novorossiysk, but not Sochi, because it is where putin like to spent time on sea coast, so there economy activity is severe limited for safety. Second, only far east harbours are opened near whole year, but north harbours and black sea, have significant time in ice, near every year. BTW interest observation - from begin of war in 2022, we have not seen normal winters, all winters was anomaly warm, with very short frost periods.
- simne 2y agoBTW, important that Sevastopol is not random choice, but it is strategical point to control Crimea. Control Crimea and coast of azov sea is important, because Russia have powerful internal water routes via azov sea. For example, when Russian black sea warship need some deep maintenance, they use rivers network to reach service facilities in deep country. It is luck for Ukraine, that we have huge part of azov sea coasts, with Mariupol, one of largest steel enterprise of the world and also big port (sure, I mean we control them before war). For Russians, Mariupol was hidden threat, they constantly fear that Ukraine will use power to block Russians from enter sea from Don.
- simne 2y agoBTW https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machiavellianism_(politics) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machiavellianism_(politics)