The Kremlin regards the High North as part of its national sphere of influence and the parachute drop is intended to send that clear and simple message to both the outside world and the Russian public.
Russia and the Arctic: Parachuting In
Russia’s armed forces are expected to try to seize international headlines in the coming weeks by dropping a team of specially trained parachutists over the North Pole. Moscow claims to be ‘peacefully’ commemorating the first airborne landing there made by two Soviet scientists, Vitaly Volovich and Andrei Medvedev, in May 1949. But much more is at stake: questions of power and energy.
