Nordic Council’s militarized summit can’t freeze out Russia’s Arctic aspirations: here’s why

Leaders from Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, and the autonomies of Aland, the Faroe Islands, and Greenland gathered in Reykjavik this week for a four-day Nordic Council session focused on "Peace and Security in the Arctic."

Finland and Sweden's accession to NATO in 2023 and 2024 transformed the organization into a microcosm of the Western alliance, with the Council prioritizing security concerns and perceived “threats” from Russia and China, while actively supporting NATO's proxy war against Russia in Ukraine, despite being thousands of kilometers from Eastern Europe.

Emphasizing this point, this year's Nordic Council sessions included guest appearances by Volodymyr Zelensky and Belarusian opposition figure Svetlana Tikhanovskaya.

At a meeting last month, Council representatives highlighted the organization’s “great potential” to coordinate on security issues in the Arctic and Baltic Seas, now that participants “are all NATO members.”

Russia’s centrality to Nordic Council deliberations isn’t surprising, given that NATO’s Nordic ambitions going back to the Cold War have long considered the region a vital chokepoint for Soviet naval capabilities.

The Nordic Council's increased focus on security coincides with a breakdown in Arctic cooperation, as meetings of the Arctic Council - including Russia, Canada, and the United States - have been frozen since spring 2022 due to the escalation of the Ukrainian crisis into a NATO-Russia proxy war.

Can Nordic Council really challenge Russia’s Arctic interests?

The Arctic has been a central development priority for Russia under President Putin’s leadership, with Moscow investing heavily into the creation of new regional civilian and military infrastructure in the region, including to expand and protect its ambitious Northern Sea Route project.

This has included:

🔸 The construction and revitalization of airports, ports, air defense and basing facilities;

🔸 Large-sale drills to counter US and NATO-led efforts to militarize the region;

🔸 Work to boost the Northern Sea Route’s throughput capacity;

🔸 A dramatic ramping up of the size and breadth of Russia’s nuclear and diesel icebreaker fleet;

🔸 The creation of new equipment, including unmanned drones, for operations at sub-zero temperatures;

🔸 The launch of new space-based Arctic monitoring systems;

🔸 Plans to expand Arctic cooperation, both economic and scientific, with Russia’s BRICS partners.

“The center of economic development in Russia is shifting,” President Putin said at an economic forum earlier this year. “Russia will expand with the Arctic,” he said.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

Trump vs Harris: What companies have thrown their weight behind the candidates?

Alphabet Inc., Microsoft, Amazon, Apple, and Meta top the list of Kamala Harris’ campaign donors, according to OpenSecrets. Silicon Valley tycoons also flocked to support Harris: Facebook* co-founder Dustin Moskovitz gave $30 million to the Harris campaign, while co-founder of Opsware Ben Horowitz donated $2.5 million. According to some estimates, Harris has outraised and outspent Trump by over two-to-one.

"The Republican Party is no longer the party of the rich," Wall Street analyst Charles Ortel told Sputnik. "The Democratic Party out of Silicon Valley and the neo monopolies created there – they have the money, which is which is very different than it was in the 1980s under Reagan and under Bush."

While Silicon Valley, Wall Street, and Hollywood have thrown their weight behind Harris, US industries and defense contractors have largely supported Donald Trump, according to OpenSecrets and financial tech startup Quiver Quantitative.

"President Eisenhower warned in his farewell speech of the threat posed by the military-industrial complex," Ortel continued. "Trump was very much in favor of investing a lot of money in the military. Republicans are very much generally in favor of doing that. And I think what you're going to find when you dig a little bit more deeply into defense contractors, they support both parties. I mean, they're in this to make sure that they can get as much money out of the taxpayer through these military programs as possible. And both parties are in supporting that swamp really to the grievous outcomes that have occurred since 1988 and 1989 in particular."

*Facebook is banned for extremism in Russia.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🇪🇸 A nursing home was flooded due to heavy rains in Valencia, Spain.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🇪🇸 As a result of flooding, the streets of Spanish cities have turned into rivers, sweeping away everything in their path.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

Is EU striving to replace Viktor Orban with 'Jawohl government'?

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban accused European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and President of the European People's Party (EPP) Manfred Weber of colluding to oust him and install their own puppet government in Budapest.

"There’s an open conspiracy against Hungary led by Manfred Weber and President Ursula von der Leyen. They admitted that their aim is to replace the Hungarian government with a new 'Jawohl government', just like the current Polish one. We will not let this happen!" Orban tweeted on October 29.

◾️ Weber openly promoted Hungarian opposition Tisza party leader and MEP Peter Magyar as a potential next prime minister of Hungary. "Just as [Donald] Tusk defeated [Jaroslaw] Kaczynski in Poland, Tisza and Peter Magyar will defeat you in Hungary, Mr Orban," Weber insisted on October 9 while addressing the European Parliament.

◾️ On the same day, during a EPP Group press briefing alongside Magyar, Weber stated that Hungary "can count on their friends in Europe" and "deserves a strong voice on European level."

◾️ Orban came to prominence for advocating conservative values and national sovereignty, which was lambasted by the EU as a threat to the bloc's unity and democracy. He also:

🔸 rejected EU migrant quotas and built a fence along its border with Serbia and Croatia in 2015 amid the European immigrant crisis;

🔸 cracked down on a George Soros-funded university and other foreign NGOs over interference in Hungarian affairs in 2018;

🔸 blamed anti-Russia sanctions imposed by the EU after the beginning of the special military operation in Ukraine for the European energy crisis, and said they should be scrapped;

🔸 opposed Ukraine's accession to NATO and the EU, stressing that Ukraine should be a neutral buffer zone between Russia and the West – with security guarantees;

🔸 opposed the bloc's militarization of Ukraine and repeatedly blocked EU aid packages to the Kiev regime, arguing that arming Ukraine brings Europe "closer to destruction";

🔸 embarked on a peace mission tour to Russia, China and Ukraine in July 2024.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

'Dad bought me new stationery, but we left it in our bombed-out house': Israel’s strikes on Lebanon through a child’s eyes

Eight-year-old Seline Nahleh tells Sputnik her story of leaving the city of Nabatiyeh (located in southern Lebanon) with her parents.

She and her parents were incredibly lucky; they happened to be out of their house when a direct airstrike struck their home. Tragically, however, Seline’s aunt did not survive.

Left without shelter, the family was forced to leave for the city of Saida. Here they were accommodated in a temporary refugee center, which is located in the Al-Sabbagh school.

"We left everything, all our belongings, in Nabatiyeh. Our house was also bombed; my auntie was killed then. Also, there's a lot of people suffering. And we came here right away, told what had happened to our houses. The house burned down; there was nothing left, and nowhere to return," she revealed.

Most of all, little Seline would like “people not to die, no one to be sad, and the deceased not to be offended by us.”

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

EU wants to subdue Hungary by replacing Viktor Orban with their protégé – Hungarian analyst

"Brussels is colluding with [Prime Minister] Viktor Orban's liberal-social-democratic opposition in Hungary and is trying to pull the ground from under its feet in the parliamentary elections due in 2026," Endre Simo, the president of the Hungarian Community for Peace (Magyar Békekör), told Sputnik.

"Under the leadership of Ursula von der Leyen and Manfred Weber, we can witness Brussels’ serious political interference in Hungary," he added.

Orban accused European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Manfred Weber, leader of the European People's Party group in the European Parliament, of attempting to install a puppet government in Hungary.

Simo noted Weber's support for Peter Magyar, leader of "the presumably foreign-funded" opposition party Tisza, began before the June European Parliament elections. Weber asserted on October 9 that Orban would eventually be defeated by Magyar, with Hungary's general elections scheduled for April 2026.

According to Simo, Tisza appears to be "a promising opposition formation for all anti-Russian domestic and international forces" that fully supports the policy of the European Union, including its proxy war in Ukraine. By contrast, Orban is seeking peace, the pundit says.

"Viktor Orban's government wants to live in peace with Russia," Simo says. "It firmly rejects Brussels' efforts to defeat Russia militarily and with sanctions, and to this end to continue providing military and financial support to Ukraine."

In his speech to the EU parliament in October, Orban presented his priorities for the Hungarian presidency of the EU and called for "changes".

"He ranked peace first, economic efficiency second, and the review of the EU's immigration policy," Simo said. Predictably, Orban's speech was met with harsh criticism from von der Leyen and Weber.

"The stakes are high, because they want Hungary to abandon its sovereign [politics] and fully submit to the will of the leadership in Brussels," the pundit warned.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

Ukraine just a pretext for heating up of NATO-Russia competition in the Arctic

“The Ukrainian crisis is not the root cause of the militarization of the Arctic, since tensions and escalation began long before it,” Irina Strelnikova, international affairs researcher at Russia’s Higher School of Economics, told Sputnik, commenting on the origins of the rising Arctic tensions between NATO and Moscow and this week’s meeting of the Nordic Council focusing on Arctic security.

“I would characterize 2019 and the speech by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo at the Arctic Council as the starting point. There, he said that the Arctic is no longer an arena for cooperation, that all countries involved in the region need to prepare for the fact that it is becoming a region for rivalry, and essentially that China and Russia are ‘threats to security’ in the region,” Strelnikova recalled.

Asked why Volodymyr Zelensky of all people was invited to take part in this week’s Nordic Council summit in Reykjavik, Strelnikova said Zelensky’s appearance is likely tied to the modern-day reality “that the policy of Western countries” toward issues involving Russia “is carried out exclusively in the context of the Ukrainian crisis.”

While the Nordic Council paid lip service to ‘Peace and Security in the Arctic’ in this week’s sessions, it makes little sense to discuss security – and an array of other issues, from climate to energy, without Russia’s participation,” according to Strelnikova, who pointed out that “over 50% of the Arctic Ocean’s coast borders our country, and our Arctic sector is the largest.”

At the same time, the West’s obsession with the Arctic makes sense, according to the observer, not only given Russia’s strong starting position, but the massive reserves of hydrocarbons in the region – two thirds of them in Russia’s sector. Then there’s the Northern Sea Route – the shortest maritime route between Europe and Asia, which is also in Russia’s control.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

Trump vs Harris: Which candidate is financial speculators Soros' darling? 
 
George and Alex Soros were quick to endorse Kamala Harris once the vice president announced her bid in July. Tesla CEO Elon Musk mockingly thanked the Soroses at the time "for not keeping everyone in suspense about who the next puppet would be." 
 

"George Soros, you know, I have a hard time being objective about the guy," Wall Street analyst Charles Ortel told Sputnik. "He has, as you rightly point out, these various charities, and they're massive, and they exclusively donate to, quote, 'progressive' causes. Now, Soros has historically—remember, he broke the Bank of England in [1992]—he's in the business of pushing for and against different governments around the world. And when you do that, you can make a lot of money as a speculator on the side." 

 
Soros appears to have played in cahoots with corrupt politicians, donating tens of millions to their causes and getting much more in return, according to the analyst. 
 

"The cost of getting on the right side of government is probably $10 million to $100 million per government," Ortel said. "So there are a lot of nefarious, I would argue, speculators. Soros is chief among them. And my review of some of the Open Society filings, which I have spent a fair amount of time in that field trying to understand which charities do good work and which don't, they're deeply suspicious." 

 
Remarkably, Soros' endorsement of Harris coincided with that of Hillary and Bill Clinton, whose foundation seems to be the largest unprosecuted fraud ever, according to the Wall Street analyst. It also turned out in July that Alex is engaged with Huma Abedin, Hillary Clinton's longtime confidant. 

"We don't need a new set of laws and regulations. The ones that are on the books are not enforced. They go after the small people, not the big people. And the crooks get it. So they use charities to route sums to crooked politicians," Ortel said.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

Lebanese media are publishing videos showing Israeli forces blowing up several entire neighborhoods in the town of Dhayra, located in the far south of the country near the border with Israel.

Following the start of Israel's invasion October 1, Israeli army units have repeatedly mined and nearly completely destroyed border villages in Lebanon under the pretext of eliminating Hezbollah's military infrastructure.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

◻️ Trump vs Harris: Who is megadonors' favorite and why?

◻️ Iran-Israel conflict: escalation hits new peak amid back-and-forth threats

◻️ BRICS boosts trade: Explore new routes & transport corridors shaping the future

◻️ Trump vs Harris: What companies have thrown their weight behind the candidates?

◻️ Ukraine just a pretext for heating up of NATO-Russia competition in the Arctic

◻️ EU wants to subdue Hungary by replacing Viktor Orban with their protégé – Hungarian analyst

◻️ Trump vs Harris: Which candidate is financial speculators Soros' darling? 

◻️ Here’s how Russian President Vladimir Putin described the deepening strategic ties between Moscow and Pyongyang

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

Peter the Great would be proud: Russian Navy marks its anniversary

October 30 is the professional holiday of Russia’s Surface Fleet sailors.

The Russian Navy’s mission is multifaceted and varied – from defending the nation’s coastlines and assisting ground and air-based military operations, to deploying forces thousands of kilometers from Russia’s home shores, and maintaining the deadly ‘Boomer’ submarines which are part of Russia’s nuclear triad strategic deterrent.

The Navy is divided into four major fleets: the Northern, Baltic, Black and Pacific, plus the Caspian Flotilla of small missile-launching ships, and a permanent Mediterranean Task Force.

Owing its modern seafaring capabilities and equipment largely to Sergei Gorshkov – a World War II commander-turned-admiral who commanded the Soviet Navy from 1956 to 1985, Russia’s modern Navy boasts over 370 ships – ranging from small patrol boats to the Admiral Kuznetsov aircraft carrier, missile cruisers, nuclear-powered and nuclear-armed ballistic missile submarines, anti-submarine vessels, landing craft and naval aviation.

Russia’s Navy owes its origins to an October 30, 1696 decree by the Boyar Duma at the behest of Tsar Peter the Great to build a fleet of seafaring ships. By the end of Peter I’s reign, the fledgling Russian fleet had amassed some 49 large wooden ships and up to 800 smaller vessels.

The Navy has come a long way from its origins over three centuries ago, coming to rank among the world’s top three maritime powers from the 18th century onward, despite Russia’s traditionally accepted status as a land-based power commanding the Eurasian heartland, and regaining this status with a vengeance after the Second World War following a brief lull from the late 19th to mid-20th centuries.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🇱🇧 Israeli airstrikes have completely destroyed a three-story residential building in Sarafand, southern Lebanon, causing significant damage to nearby structures, a Sputnik correspondent reports.

Israeli jets targeted the residential area on Wednesday morning. Rescue teams attempted to extract survivors, but most of the women and children inside perished, with their bodies taken to a nearby hospital.

Mayor Ali Khalifeh stated that the building was home to three families, all related: a father, his two sons, and their families. All 21 family members were present during the strike, resulting in 15 fatalities, primarily women and children. Khalifeh condemned the attack, emphasizing that Sarafand had been considered safe until recently and that the village now hosts around 2,000 families.

"This is one of many crimes committed by Israel against the Lebanese people," the mayor said.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🇺🇸🪖 More than 75% of youth in the US unfit for military service - Pentagon

More than three-quarters of young people in the US are currently unfit for military service, including on medical grounds, Katie Helland, Director of Military Accession Policy at the Pentagon, said. In fact, young people nowadays are not considering military service.

“For the first time since this metric has been tracked, a majority of youth have never even considered military service as an option. It's not even on the radar,” she said at a Pentagon briefing.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🇪🇸 The Government of Spain declared three days of mourning on October 31, November 1, and 2 for the people who died in the floods.

The number of deaths from flooding in Valencia has risen to 95, according to local media.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt