Russian strategic narratives on the Arctic region: embedded in strategic documents and narrated by RT and Sputnik

ABSTRACT In the context of Russia’s aggressiveness towards the ex-Soviet bloc since the illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014, Moscow’s messaging concerning other “spheres of interest’ has largely been overshadowed by Russia’s activities in its Eastern near abroad. This paper examines Moscow’s framings of the Arctic through the lenses of its Strategies from 2013 and 2020. The purpose is to extract the core strategic narratives and ‘read between the lines’ so that an evaluation can be made of how Moscow perceives the Arctic, defines its interests and assesses the prospect for future confrontation in the region. This provides the basis for the second part of the paper which investigates the way in which two Russian propaganda vectors – RT and Sputnik – presented Moscow’s strategic narratives for the Arctic between 2014 and 2021. Based on this analysis, the paper concludes that although RT and Sputnik act as vessels for Moscow’s strategic narratives, they also reveal Russia’s frustrations and misperceptions that are embedded in programmatic documents. The findings reinforce recent scholarly literature which claims that Russian media vectors of foreign propaganda are more complex than simple tools for disseminating misinformation and blatant lies.