'The Arctic: Region of Cooperation and Development'

The conference in Moscow on “The Arctic: Region of Cooperation and Development” organized by the Russian International Affairs Council with IMEMO and CSIS as key partners had a nice venue in the Lotte Hotel and many important quests, including Deputy Foreign Minister Titov and Deputy Secretary of the Security Council Nazarkin (both in the picture). What surprised me was that not one word during two days of discussions was mentioned about Russia’s military activities in the Arctic; that the Nunn-Lugar programme heard no post-mortem praise in the session on the US-Russia cooperation; and that the word “Greenpeace” was absolutely impossible to pronounce. Russian experts apparently are resolutely unconcerned about the global warming (the prospect of a new “freezing” was pointed out more than once).