The Circumpolar

Serafima Andreeva
  • 5.0 (1)
  • POLITICS

Explaining Arctic geopolitics, governance and security.Supported by the Fridtjof Nansen Institute and the Arctic Institute

  1. Italy in the Arctic

    1D AGO

    Italy in the Arctic

    Recorded from Rome, we cover the question of what Italy really wants in the Arctic and how it can achieve it. Marco Dordoni, todays guest, is a PhD candidate at the Università per Stranieri di Perugia, where his doctoral work looks at how NATO's European non-Arctic states approach Arctic security, and a senior researcher at SIOI, the Rome institute that has shaped Italian thinking on international organizations and diplomacy since 1944. Italy has no Arctic coastline and no Arctic territory, but it has held a seat on the Arctic Council since 2013, and in January 2026 it published its first new Arctic policy in a decade. Marco lays out Italy's mix of interests, from the strategic value of a place at the table alongside the US, Russia, and China, to the concrete stakes of Arctic shipping. If the Northern Sea Route opens for longer each year, it could pull traffic away from Suez and the Mediterranean, with real consequences for ports like Genoa, Trieste, and Taranto. We get into critical minerals and the recent Italy-Norway agreement, what Italy can realistically offer on Arctic defence, and why Rome keeps positioning itself as cautious but present. We also cover Greenland, the Meloni-Trump relationship and where it has cooled, the Arctic Circle Rome Forum, and whether Italy actually has a long-term Arctic strategy at all.

    31 min
  2. Will the next war be hybrid?

    MAY 19

    Will the next war be hybrid?

    Hybrid threats are everywhere and nowhere. Cable cutting in the Baltic, drone incursions in Copenhagen and Oslo, the shadow fleet moving sanctioned oil under foreign flags, self-igniting parcels routed through DHL, GPS jamming that no longer triggers Article 5 conversations the way it once might have. What counts as hybrid, what counts as warfare, and where is the line? Dr. Gabriella Gricius returns to The Circumpolar to map how Russia operates differently across the Barents, the Baltic, and the Black Sea, why the shadow fleet is really about testing political cohesion rather than oil revenue, and why compounding threats keep her up at night. The conversation covers attribution problems, the limits of UNCLOS, what to make of Russia's ambassador to Norway saying Moscow has no interest in hybrid confrontation, and whether the West can hold a coherent red line when it cannot agree on a coherent response. Dr. Gabriella Gricius is an Associate Professor at the Norwegian Military Academy, a Senior Fellow at The Arctic Institute, and a Fellow with the North American and Arctic Defense and Security Network. Her work focuses on Arctic and northern European security with a focus on Russia.

    21 min
  3. Is Russian oil benefiting from the war in Iran?

    MAY 12

    Is Russian oil benefiting from the war in Iran?

    Arild Moe, research professor at the Fridtjof Nansen Institute, joins Serafima Andreeva to unpack what the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East mean for Russia's Arctic energy sector. They discuss whether Russia is really benefiting from higher oil prices, why the "Arctic dream economy" looks increasingly fragile, the future of Yamal LNG as Europe prepares to phase out Russian gas, and the growing role of the shadow fleet. Drawing on his recent book with Anna Korppoo, "Climate, Hydrocarbons and Sanctions in the Russian Arctic", published with Edward Elgar, Arild explains why long-distance energy supplies are looking more vulnerable, how climate concerns figure into Russian planning (briefly, it turns out), and what rebuilding relations with Russia might eventually require. Book: https://www.e-elgar.com/shop/gbp/climate-hydrocarbons-sanctions-9781035355501.html

    14 min
  4. Can we explore space without colonising the Earth?

    MAY 5

    Can we explore space without colonising the Earth?

    What does space sustainability actually mean, and why does it matter for the Arctic? In this episode of The Circumpolar, Serafima sits down with Tom Gabriel Royer, PhD candidate in space law at the University of Lapland, co-lead of Working Group 5 on COST Action FOGOS, and Visiting Researcher at the Arctic Centre, to talk through what's happening in the space sector right now and where the real tensions lie. Tom walks through the new EU Space Act proposal, the global push to attract space operators, and what scholars call the space sustainability paradox: we need space to monitor climate change on Earth, but to get there we build infrastructure that disrupts ecosystems on the ground. Launch-related pollution, he argues, is the missing piece in regulation. Even reusable rockets pollute. Reusability solves hardware waste, but it does not eliminate the environmental impact of launch operations. The conversation also turns to Tom's own work on immaterial extractivism around Arctic spaceports like Esrange, where the soundscape, the peacefulness and the emptiness of the land are extracted in the name of science, defence and economic growth. From the 1972 Liability Convention to indigenous perspectives on going to the Moon, Tom asks who actually benefits when we say space is the province of all humanity, and what it would take to do this thoughtfully.

    26 min
  5. Geopolitics of Outer Space: competition, militarisation, cooperation?

    APR 28

    Geopolitics of Outer Space: competition, militarisation, cooperation?

    Is space governed well enough, and can we still prevent it from becoming a field of conflict or competition? Serafima sits down with Michael Byers, Professor of Political Science at the University of British Columbia, co-director of the Outer Space Institute and author of Who Owns Outer Space. Space is more governed than people think, Michael argues. The 1967 Outer Space Treaty was a remarkable document, and its negotiators were prescient. But space is developing very quickly. In just the last ten years we've gone from 2,000 operational satellites to 15,000, with plans for more than a million more. Add superpowers who are suspicious of each other, a heavy military reliance on satellites, and Donald Trump's so-called Golden Dome with over 1,000 space-based missile interceptors, and the security dilemma starts to look familiar. Drawing on his years working on Arctic governance, Michael walks through the parallels between two areas beyond national jurisdiction where countries almost necessarily have to cooperate. They also get into the renewed race to the moon and why it might really be about Donald Trump's ego, Elon Musk's Mars ambitions and the Starlink user agreement that already declares Mars "a free planet beyond the reach of nation states," the bubble economy of space startups, and what it would actually mean for humanity to find ancient life on another world.

    34 min
  6. France in the Arctic

    APR 21

    France in the Arctic

    France is not an Arctic state, but it has been present in the region longer than most. Dr. Florian Vidal, senior researcher at UiT's Center for Geopolitics, Peace and Security, joins us to map the shape of that presence and the direction it is now taking. Much of France's standing in the Arctic rests on science. French polar research goes back to the 19th century, and the station at Ny-Ålesund on Svalbard, operated jointly with the Alfred Wegener Institute, continues to anchor that footprint. Around it runs a tradition of climate diplomacy that successive governments have used to claim a leadership role on the environmental future of the region. The defence picture is newer, and moving faster. French naval deployments in Arctic waters are increasing, bilateral ties with Denmark, Finland and Norway are being reinforced, and NATO has emerged as one of the key structures through which France's contribution is organised. Vidal works through what it means that France holds the only nuclear deterrent inside the European Union, and how this has begun to signal that this protection could extend to European partners willing to engage. Greenland threads through the conversation. As transatlantic relations have wobbled, France has been unusually visible there: the first EU member state to open a consulate general, a small military unit sent to take part in Danish-led exercises, and a strategic agreement between the French National Geological Survey and the Greenlandic Department of Geology on critical minerals. Looking further out, Vidal weighs concerns over Russian force posture on the Kola Peninsula and possible spillover from the Baltic against longer-term issues like the Greenland ice sheet and its consequences for the AMOC. He closes with a frank point: if France wants a reliable position in the polar regions, it has to commit to invest.

    22 min
  7. Arctic Shipping and the Northern Sea Route

    APR 14

    Arctic Shipping and the Northern Sea Route

    Research professor Arild Moe from the Fridtjof Nansen Institute joins us to discuss Russia's Arctic ambitions and the Northern Sea Route. How realistic are Russia's development plans? And what role is China really playing? The Northern Sea Route is many things for Russia: the shortest distance between its eastern and western borders, a way to access the coast of Siberia and its vast natural resources, and a potential shortcut between the Atlantic and the Pacific. For the Kremlin, it has been high on the political agenda for decades and is considered a cornerstone of Russia's economic future. But the finances tell a more complicated story. The development model was built on a combination of federal budget revenues and contributions from the Arctic's hydrocarbon producers, whose projects were entirely dependent on the route. The war in Ukraine has put serious pressure on both sides of that equation. Arctic LNG projects have been delayed, sanctions have complicated investment, and the cargo base for the route is not looking as good as it did just a few years ago. Arild also addresses some of the misconceptions around Arctic shipping. Reports of record transit numbers require closer reading. Much of the recent increase reflects trade between Asia and Russian ports, or sanctioned Russian oil taking a longer route to Chinese markets. There has not been a surge in real international transits between the Pacific and the Atlantic. And then there is China. Russia has grown more willing to bring China in, particularly since the war shifted the balance of power between them. But Chinese investors are looking carefully at the commercial aspects, and being interested in the long term is not the same as being ready to invest at this stage.

    18 min
  8. What can an artist do in the face of Arctic climate change?

    APR 7

    What can an artist do in the face of Arctic climate change?

    What can an artist actually do in the face of climate change? Ruth Maclennan is an artist, filmmaker, and researcher affiliated with the Scott Polar Research Institute in Cambridge. She has spen many years trying to answer that question through her own practice, from the Russian taiga to the glaciers of Svalbard. In this episode, recorded during the fifth Arctic Art Forum symposium in Norway, Ruth talks about making work in places where climate change is most acutely felt and least visible from the outside. She discusses her collaborative film A Forest Tale, shot in the Russian Arctic just weeks before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and her more recent film All the Tears in the Sea, made during a residency in Svalbard. The film weaves together encounters with glaciologists, conservationists, reindeer, mining towns, and the strange hum of wind through Longyearbyen's lampposts. The conversation moves between the personal and the geopolitical: how art can hold complexity without simplifying it, why Arctic decision-makers need to listen to the people and species who actually live there, and how showing agency rather than helplessness might be the most important thing a film can do. As Ruth puts it: geopolitics is not a game of chess, it's a symphony. Find more of Ruth's work at ruthmaclennan.com and on Instagram @maclennanruth.

    27 min
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About

Explaining Arctic geopolitics, governance and security.Supported by the Fridtjof Nansen Institute and the Arctic Institute

Information

  • Creator
    Serafima Andreeva
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    20
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2026 The Circumpolar
  • Show Website
    The Circumpolar

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