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MOSCOW, February 25. /TASS/. Non-Arctic developed nations are craving for access to the Arctic areas and are making political, military and economic steps to attain their objective, Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu said on Wednesday at a meeting of the Defense Ministry’s board.
"Developed countries that don’t have immediate access to the Arctic or sub-Arctic areas are no less actively seeking to get into the Arctic and they’re making definite political, military and economic steps in that direction," he said.
Besides, the Arctic littoral nations are doing their best to expand the national territories at the expense of the continental shelf and the islands located in the Arctic Ocean.
Along with it, permanent presence in the Arctic and the opportunity to defend state interests militarily is viewed as a constituent part of the general policy of national security protection, Shoigu said.
"It’s an open secret for everyone that the Arctic is gradually turning into a center of hydrocarbon production and into a mighty junction of international transport communications," he said.