Major Russian bank to allocate 1 trillion rubles to arctic exploration efforts

The Russian bank VTB has announced plans to allocate 1 trillion rubles ($15.7 billion) to development efforts in the Arctic over the course of the next two years, RBC reported.

Among those funds, 200 billion rubles ($3.1 billion) will be allocated to the government corporation Rosatom for the purpose of building five new icebreakers capable of traversing the Northern Sea Route. Gold, copper, and platinum mining projects also feature prominently in the bank’s plans.

The Russian government plans to quadruple its trade volume along the Northern Sea Route by 2024. While transporting goods along that route from Europe to Asia is faster than transporting them through the Suez canal, the Northern Sea Route is currently much less profitable.

As the climate crisis progresses and arctic sea ice decreases in volume, multiple world powers have increased their efforts to exploit natural resources in the region that were previously inaccessible. That process has long been described as a further hit to the environment and a potential cause of new conflicts.