The coal mining town of Barentsbourg, about 1,300km from the Arctic, belongs to the territory of Norway - a founding member of NATO. Here, salaries are paid in rubles, television channels broadcast Russian government programs and people use Russian phone SIMs.
The local school, located on a street named after the famous Russian explorer, has about more than 30 students studying under the Russian education program. The three-colored national flag of Russia appears everywhere.
Barentsbourg is part of the Svalbard Arctic Islands, a special geopolitical entity formed under the 1920 treaty, granting sovereignty to Norway but allowing many countries, including Russia, China and the United States, to access it on the condition that all parties do not use the area for military purposes.
Currently, concerns are increasing as Russia's growing military presence in the Arctic along with US President Donald Trump's announcements about the annexation of Greenland risk breaking decades of fragile stability in the Far North.
Unlike Greenland, Russia and China are actually present in Svalbard and are increasingly strengthening cooperation.
Areas that were once outside the periphery of global politics, especially the Arctic, have now become new hotspots. And few places in the Arctic are as desirable as Svalbard, located on the shortest flight path for Russian missiles to the US and possessing natural resources that Norway has protected for decades.
The US and Norway believe that a Chinese scientific research facility in Svalbard is actually a military research center. The only university in Svalbard banned Chinese students last year after the Norwegian domestic intelligence agency assessed them as a security risk.
Russia is seeking to attract Chinese and international scientists to a new research station in Barentsbourg.
Norway is strengthening control over Svalbard by stepping up naval patrols, tightening regulations on foreigners and planning to explore the surrounding seabed, which contains rare earth deposits. The country also declared 2026 the "Year of National Defense".
However, the archipelago still has many weaknesses. A food ship to Svalbard in January had to stop in the middle of the road due to a technical problem, causing the area to have supply disruptions for many days. Internet-connected submarine cables are also easily damaged.
For a long time, Norway has depended on the US in protecting Svalbard, allowing US troops to access ground bases and share information about Russian submarines operating at Bear Gap, the area separating Svalbard from the rest of Norway.
Some officials in Oslo believe that Norway should deploy military assets in Svalbard as a deterrent measure, but Moscow warns that this move would violate the provisions of the 1920 treaty prohibiting the use of the archipelago for war purposes.
Arctic expert Andreas Osthagen of the Fridtjof Nansen Institute said that Russia could respond by occupying the archipelago to protect access to Bear Gap and the Kola Peninsula, which store the world's largest nuclear arsenal.
“Svalbard could clearly be the 2nd or 3rd domino that collapses if a real conflict occurs between NATO and Russia. This scenario is not the highest possibility, but now there is a much greater probability than a few months ago,” he said.
