How do the Russians melt Antarctica

By Irina Severin

There are more localized methods the Russians use to melt Antarctica, but here I examine the issue from a global perspective. According to Live Science https://tinyurl.com/wa2t5jva report, "In 2015, after decades of relative stability, Antarctica's sea ice suddenly began to disappear. Sea ice extent reached a record low in 2023, and scientists have now figured out what happened in that period."

Antarctica seemed to resist global warming in the 2000s and early 2010s, but that changed in 2015.

(Image credit: Wolfgang Kaehler/LightRocket via Getty Images)

This is the same 2015, when, after ostracising the West because of the illegal occupation of Ukraine's Crimea, Russia increased its efforts to intensify the destruction of the Arctic ice to get to the oil and gas deposits without ecologically friendly Western technologies. Russia should have started warming up the Arctic earlier, when Shoigu became Defense Minister and began rebuilding Soviet military bases there, thereby distancing Russia from Europe and reorienting it toward China.

Active military developments in the Arctic, rebalancing geopolitical power in Russia's favor, and big dreams encouraged Russia to occupy Crimea in the first place. From Shoigu's perspective, the move should accelerate Russia's reorientation from the West toward Asia.

Reorientation to China necessitated freeing the Arctic from ice to make the North Sea Route (NSR) active all year long - otherwise, China would refuse to invest in Russian infrastructure and use the North Sea Route.

To accelerate the melting, Putin appointed Rosatom (State Atomic Energy Corporation) to operate the NSR (decision formalized in 2018), indicating that the main operational task was to free the Arctic from ice within tight deadlines, using the nuclear icebreaker fleet, the nuclear icebreaking submarine fleet, and nuclear floating power stations as the primary technical means to achieve this goal.

The Global Ocean Conveyor Belt 

The results became obvious quickly when, after a pause in global warming, the Arctic suddenly began warming 4-7 times faster than the rest of the world, which led to a weakening of the AMOC and a decrease in air exchange between the tropics and the Arctic. This meant that the South Pole had to accept more warm water and warm air to compensate for the North Pole's decreased capacity due to active ice melting.

The sooner Antarctica melts, the sooner the Arctic melts too. An advantageous setup for Russia and an existential threat for the rest of the world, including China.

If the melting of the Arctic is not stopped and reversed, China, India, the US, and Europe will render their territories uninhabitable, while 75 percent of Russian territory, currently unlivable due to permafrost and swamps, will become productive agricultural land and a favorable place to live.

Will the US, Europe, Britain, China, and India, as well as others, agree to obediently sacrifice their countries to increase Russia's living space, or will they take action to stop a de facto Russian climate war is not clear yet. For a simple reason. Russia significantly increases its climate/weather propaganda, Reflexive Control, and PsyOps, meant to confuse both public opinion and decision-makers, actively using false flags and local actors to spread Russian propaganda and deception campaigns to numb the perception of existential threat.

Also, Moscow will use all possible means to deflect attention from its climate and weather warfare, which already significantly strengthened Russia's geopolitical position but hasn't reached a point of no return yet.