The United States and Russia touched on the Arctic during recent talks. The countries have points of contact on which they could cooperate. This is reported by Bloomberg.
The sources said the discussions covered natural resource exploration and trade routes. One of the people said cooperation in energy exploration was also seen as a U.S. goal.
The issue has come as US President Donald Trump has pushed hard for an end to the war in Ukraine, including direct talks with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin. Both sides have recently signaled they are open to business and cooperation, a move that has alarmed European and NATO allies who have sought to isolate Moscow since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine three years ago.
One source said U.S. officials are looking at Arctic cooperation as a way to drive a wedge between Moscow and Beijing, but warned that this is unlikely to succeed given how close Russia and China have become in recent years, especially given their “unlimited” partnership since the war in Ukraine.
Bloomberg added that the Arctic, which is surrounded by Russia and seven NATO countries — the United States, Canada, and the Nordic countries of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden, has attracted increasing attention in recent years as melting ice due to climate change opens up shipping lanes and opportunities for exploration of potential energy and mineral resources.
A little earlier, Politico wrote that Kirill Dmitriev, head of the state-owned Russian Direct Investment Fund, said after talks between the US and Russia in Saudi Arabia (February 2025) that cooperation in Arctic energy projects was one of the "specific areas of cooperation" they discussed.
In addition, late last year, the Pentagon published a new Arctic Strategy, which emphasized the risk of China and Russia uniting in the region.
China has been increasingly focused on the Arctic in recent years, declaring itself a “Priarctic state” in 2018 and developing fishing, energy and transport interests in the region. The prospect of new shipping routes is seen as key to Beijing’s strategy of a Polar Silk Road connecting East Asia, Western Europe and North America.
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