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Russia is likely to continue its military build-up in both the Baltic Sea and the Arctic in the long-term perspective. Following the accession of Finland and Sweden to NATO, Russian military thinkers and planners are increasingly seeing the two theatres as contiguous areas.
As NATO member states around the Baltic Sea and in the Arctic confront Russia over its aggressive policies, they should be prepared for Russia to execute a still wider range of military responses. These responses will be designed to deter and destabilise the NATO member states with the explicit aim of forcing the latter to change their policy towards Russia.
KEY POINTS
- The Baltic Sea and the Arctic are even more important theatres of military show and operations for Russia after the accession of Finland and Sweden to NATO.
- Russian military activities will range from the fully announced (e.g. exercises) to the wholly unacknowledged (e.g. sabotage).
- Russia will increasingly invite China to support its military activities in both theatres to bolster the effect of these activities.
- Russia will seek to reduce to a minimum any strengthening of the US military presence in and around Greenland.
The accession of Finland (2023) and Sweden (2024) to NATO has made the organisational geography simpler: Russia is now confronted by a full group of NATO member states in both the Baltic Sea region (eight NATO member states) and in the Arctic (seven NATO member states). Russia itself has provoked this unwanted development by its illegal invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and by its aggressive policies towards a long list of neighbouring countries, including Finland and Sweden.
The circle of NATO member states in the Baltic Sea region and the Arctic – totalling 12 individual states as the Kingdom of Denmark, Sweden and Finland are in both areas – includes some of the fiercest critics of Russia as well as some of the most ardent supporters of Ukraine. This fact has elevated the two regions to even more prominent positions than usual in the Russian public debate; there is, simply put, a very long list of political preferences and decisions found within and across the 12 NATO member states that Russia will seek to influence and roll back.
In a highly symbolic step in February 2024, Russian president Vladimir Putin reintroduced the Leningrad Military District. This district has been involved in some of the most controversial Soviet military activities, including the invasion and occupation of independent Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania (1939-1991) and the Winter War against Finland (1939-1940). Its reintroduction to a large extent reflects a political wish to tap into its many connotations of confrontation; another wish is to signal a more focused approach in the North-Western strategic direction, including Sweden and Finland (the latter now representing a NATO border for Russia) as well as the Arctic.
As only two of the main doctrines underlying Russia’s approach to the Baltic Sea region and the Arctic have been revised since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, we have relatively little to go by in terms of formal guidance. However, a revised Naval Doctrine was signed by Putin in July 2022, and a revised Foreign Policy Doctrine followed in March 2023.
“In general, if we speak about a possible Russian response to the strengthening of NATO’s Northern flank, then this will have to include all aspects of military security – both quantitatively (..) and qualitatively”.
Ilya Kramnik, Research Fellow at The Russian Institute of World Economy and International Relations, in Nezavisimaya Gazeta, 24 July 2023
The Naval Doctrine claims that “the implementation by Russia of independent foreign and domestic policies provokes opposition from the USA and its allies”, and it adds that Russia needs to “raise the combat potential and develop the system of bases of the Northern Fleet (..)”.1 The Foreign Policy Doctrine points to the need for Russia to “neutralize the course of unfriendly states to militarize the [Arctic] and to limit Russia’s possibilities for exercising its sovereign rights (..)”.The Foreign Policy Doctrine also extends an invitation to non-Arctic states with a “constructive policy towards Russia” to join Russia in the Arctic; this should be seen as a concession towards China, which is seeking to increase its influence in the Arctic.2
The wider debate in Russia, as expressed in both academic and commentator communities, is more alarmist and aggressive. It is being communicated quite strongly to the public that recent “hostile” developments, in particular the admission of Finland and Sweden to NATO, are unacceptable and need to be addressed by Russia, including by military means. An oft-made argument is that a previous, quite precarious military balance has been upset by both the enlargements and by other “anti-Russian” measures taken by NATO as a whole and by the circle of 12 Baltic Sea and Arctic NATO member states, whether acting individually or collectively.3 The “anti-Russian” measures are said to be a combination of conventional and hybrid military activities designed to further weaken Russia’s position in both theatres.4 The Russian public is led to expect that the Russian military will address this in a robust manner, now and even more so after the conclusion of the war in Ukraine. The accusation that NATO member states employ hybrid measures against Russia should be seen to legitimise the use of unconventional approaches by Russia.
Hybrid war
However, this central element of the Russian military thinking about the Baltic Sea region and the Arctic is fully absent from the publicly available sources: the use of so-called hybrid tools – spanning the physical, the cyber and the cognitive domains – to achieve various effects. The combined effect of these operations is such that heads-of-government of NATO member states in January 2025 declared that, while they do not consider themselves at war, “this is no longer peacetime”.
The Russian literature on hybrid war (usually claimed to be an instrument of the West against Russia) is very rich, but the essence of it may be summarised as causing a condition of “controlled chaos”.5 The extreme fusion in Russia of state-controlled and private, military and civilian as well as kinetic and non-kinetic assets provides military planners with an extensive range of opportunities when seeking to inflict “controlled chaos” on other Baltic Sea or Arctic states.
Against the background of an increase in the military potential of NATO close to the borders of Russia (..) we have taken steps to strengthen our forces in the North-Western and Western directions.
Then Russian Minister of Defence Sergei Shoigu announcing the establishment of the Leningrad Military District, in TASS, 5 March 2024
The focus of these latter states is very much on the protection of undersea cables and pipelines. On 14 January 2025, NATO announced the formation of a “Baltic Sentry”, including surface vessels and maritime patrol aircraft, to monitor and protect this critical infrastructure. This NATO initiative represents an attempt to both defend against and deter Russia, but it would be naïve to expect this to solve the issue. The hybrid attack vectors in the Baltic Sea region – and in the Arctic – are so many, and the comprehensive approach of Russia regarding the use of hybrid tools so deep-rooted, that Russia should be expected to continue to operate in this manner. The NATO member states need to remain cognisant of the fact that it is not just about the maritime environment; it is also about land and air and about cyber, and it is even about the information sphere.
The conflict over Greenland
The dramatic announcement in January 2025 by the US administration that the USA intends to take control of Greenland is a cause for concern for Russia. The Russian expert community is unanimous in its criticism of the Arctic policy of the first Donald Trump presidency, often labelling it “confrontational” and “anti-Russian” and seeing it as a departure from an earlier, more cooperative US approach.6Valentina Matvienko, chairwoman of the Russian Federation Council, accused the USA of seeking to “strengthen and expand its presence in the Arctic” by taking over Greenland, adding that “the Arctic holds great strategic, geopolitical importance for Russia”.7
Russia surely welcomes conflict among NATO member states, in this case between the USA on the one side and the Kingdom of Denmark and its supporters on the other side, as this promises to weaken NATO cohesion and resolve. However, militarily speaking, the dispute over Greenland points in one direction only: a significant increase in the military presence of NATO in and around Greenland, which threatens to weaken the effect of the large-scale military build-up by Russia in its Arctic zone in the years since 2014. This build-up includes the deployment across different platforms of some of the newest Russian hypersonic missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads.
Considering this build-up by the Russian military, one issue will be of particular importance for the USA as the latter designs the future military presence in and around Greenland: the strengthening of air and under-sea surveillance capabilities designed to deny the Russian military the element of surprise in air operations and the freedom of undetected navigation in submarine operations. Whether led and financed by the USA, the Kingdom of Denmark or a combination of NATO member states, this will be directed at Russia’s Arctic capabilities. The conflict over Greenland in this way is very likely to present Russia with a dilemma:
On the one hand, Russia risks provoking a robust NATO response if it takes a highly confrontational stance. This suggests that Russian politicians and experts will tone down the otherwise self-confident rhetoric about Russia’s military presence in the Arctic; “in the present situation of confrontation [in the Arctic]”, so researchers from a university under the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs triumphantly claimed in late 2024, “Russia is better prepared militarily, economically and in terms of infrastructure”.8
On the other hand, both the Baltic Sea region and the Arctic are areas of great military significance and symbolism, and Russia will be tempted to continue its military build-up in both theatres. To not do so would be to deny itself the advantage offered by the sensitivity of both areas.
- 1 Ukaz – Ob utverzhdenii Morskoi Doktriny Rossiiskoi Federatsii (31 July 2022), II/20 and V/50/20, respectively.
- 2 Ukaz – Ob utverzhdenii Kontseptsii vneshnei politiki Rossiiskoi Federatsii (31 March 2023), 50/2 and 50/4, respectively.
- 3 Natalya Markushina, Menyayushchiecya kontury bezopasnosti i balans sil v Baltiiskom regione: Znachenie dlya Rossii (Moscow: The Russian Council on International Affairs 2023).
- 4 Aleksandr Zemlin, Georgiy Ivanov and Vladimir Khanko, “Pravovye voprosy obespecheniya natsionalnoi bezopasnosti Rossiiskoi Federatsii v Arktike”, Voennoe pravo 2/78 (2023), pp. 9-14.
- 5 Aleksandr Bartosh, “Tsel i mekhanismy modeli upravlyaemogo khaosa”, Nezavismiaya Gazeta (27 September 2013).
- 6 See, e.g., Valeriy Konyshev and Aleksandr Sergunin, “Novoe vino v starykh mekhakh? Ob arkticheskoi strategii administratsii Dzh. Baidena”, Mirovaya ekonomika i mezhdunarodnye otnosheniya 7/67 (2023), pp. 63-73.
- 7 In TASS (14 January 2025).
- 8 Gor Kazaryan and Ekaterina Kurikina, ”Protivostoyanie Rossii i NATO v Arktike”, Sotsialno-gumanitarnye znaniya 8 (2024), p. 138.
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