2022: The Russian Arctic in Times of Change

The purpose of the article is to comprehend the problems of the Russian Arctic against the background of a special military operation in Ukraine in 2022. The research methodology is based on interdisciplinarity, general scientific methods, priority use of primary sources. The author investigates the current topics of determining the outer limits of the Russian continental shelf in the Arctic, Russia’s participation in the Arctic Council, the US Arctic strategy in 2019, 2022 and the US Arctic strategy in 2022. The volume of freight traffic in the Northern Sea Route and the Arctic Basin over the past few years, the activities of the newly established in 2022 FSBI “Glavsevmorput”, the creation of a single platform of digital services are analyzed. Due to Russia’s ongoing Asian turn in international relations to the east, the increase in the volume of cargo transportation to Asia and the sanctions of the collective West, there is an urgent need to bring existing regulations, navigation rules in line with the current reality in the economy and politics, to ensure the security of the entire Russian Arctic. In perspective, the transformation of the NSR water area into the sea transport corridor from Murmansk in the west to Vladivostok in the east becomes quite possible. In 2022, a modified procedure for identifying existing names of geographical objects was approved. An important aspect is the appearance on the map of the names of the Russians participated in the study of the Arctic. The complex of external and internal challenges in the Russian Arctic is not limited to the problems mentioned in the article and requires further research.