Competing claims over the ownership of the Arctic territory have elevated political tensions in the northern hemisphere to a military level.
The Rusian President Vladimir Putin has ordered the deployment of military units in the Arctic following Canada’s claim to the North Pole filed with the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf last week.
“I would like you to devote special attention to deploying infrastructure and military units in the Arctic,” Putin said in a televised address to the Russian defence ministry on Tuesday.
The Russian expansion plans in the region include setting up new air bases in the Siberian town Tiksi and the Severomorsk naval port.
The Soviet-era country had owned a huge military base in the northern extremes of East Siberia, which it is looking to restore.
The two countries are among a group of claimants to the contested grounds which contain an estimated 30% of the world’s undiscovered natural gas and 15% of oil, according to the US Geological Survey.
They are joined by Denmark and Norway with whom they form part of the Arctic Council which overlooks security and geopolitical issues in the region.
Meanwhile, Russia’s state gas producer Gazprom is looking to begin operations in the Arctic Pechora Sea from its Prirazlomnaya rig – the platform at the centre of a recent Greenpeace protest – before the end of the year.
The company’s oil arm Gazprom Neft is said to be planning the construction of another two ice-protected oil platforms in the region.