On Wednesday, President Putin visited the northernmost territory of Russia, the Franz Josef Land archipelago. This is the second visit of the head of state, and another confirmation of Russia's determination to defend its national interests in the Arctic. Once Joseph Stalin simply wrote on the globe "Arctic Territories of the USSR". This is how active development of the North began. Since then, big progress has been made. Sailors and polar explorers became Soviet heroes and idols of the youth. A new Russia stepped up Arctic research, and work on the international legal recognition of our Arctic shelf.

The topic is important, because only mineral resources in these areas are estimated at as much as $30 trillion. A planetary strategic resource. It's clear that in the current relations with the United States and NATO, it’s fundamentally important to protect our high latitudes with our military. Therefore, before taking part in the International Arctic

Conference in Arkhangelsk, Putin visited a new Russian military base on Franz Josef Land. A futuristic structure called "trifoil," looks as if it's from fantasy novels about deep space exploration. No other Arctic power has something like this. Then, there was a discussion with the neighbors in the North, led by my colleague, journalist of the American CNBC television channel Geoff Cutmore, who asked burning, if not provocative questions. Pavel Zarubin will tell you more about everything. Read my lips: No! Putin told to read his lips to the American TV journalist when he asked twice whether Russia had influenced the American elections.

The case took place at the international forum on the Arctic, but the moderator found an excuse. How to cooperate in the Arctic, when the relations between Russia and the West are so bad? This is partly because of Ukraine and Crimea. In the US, they say that Russia uses disinformation to influence the elections. I knew that it would end up here. But, out of respect for you, Geoff, and out of respect for your company, CNBC... Yes? Which, probably, ordered you to ask such questions, I will just have to play along. Well, firstly, I want to thank you for raising the issue and saying that there is a problem of Ukraine and a problem of Crimea, as if dividing Crimea and Ukraine, and this is correct.

Now about the essence of your question. The Ambassador of the United States is here. He came to our forum. He communicates with all the participants. We don’t hinder this, but, on the contrary, we promote it, and we help. But the contacts of our ambassador in the United States are limited. Any of his meetings are perceived with hostility, as some kind of a espionage action. Isn't that ridiculous? What do we want? To discontinue our diplomatic relations? To bring the situation back to the 60s, to the Caribbean crisis? And then what? In fact, what are such irresponsible people leading us to? Including the people of the United States? Now about Ukraine.

In the United States and other countries, there is an opinion, we know it for sure, that the worse the relationship between Russia and Ukraine is, the better it’s for them, because it weakens Russia. And let Russia go digging around with its problems on the border with its neighbors. And don't let it into international issues, and this, they say, is advantageous for them. This is a mistake. It is advantageous for no one, because if we try to contain someone using such dangerous means as regional conflicts, this can lead to global catastrophes and global conflicts. If there is tension, what can be better than the cool Arctic to cool all these hot emotions? So let us all calm down. It's the hot Finnish guys who are saying this! We should to listen to them. "Arctic — the Territory of Dialogue" is the exact name of the forum.

Modern Russia made its great, ecological contribution to the Arctic by modernizing and cleaning Franz Josef Land. It’s the northernmost point of the country, which is almost 3,000 kilometers away from Moscow. It’s five and a half hours away by plane, mostly passing over the northern seas. Faintly visible in the fog and snow, there is the flight strip, where the Russian presidential aircraft was to land. The main indicator is the yellow marking drawn on compressed snow. You can get here only by military transport aircraft, it lands directly on the ice.

But now, a strip is being built here, on which any type of aircraft will be able to land. In the conditions of -40°C, high humidity, when cars freeze on the inside within an hour, if not running, when everyone is dressed in five layers of warm clothes and is still terribly cold, Putin was wearing a light cap. He came here in 2010. Back then, Franz Josef Land was more like a big dump. Heaps of abandoned, rotten fuel barrels, trucks, and scrap metal from Soviet times. Arctic's nature was close to becoming a man-made disaster.

The President ordered a full-scale cleaning operation, and now checking how it was complete. Don't get cold. 79,000 tons of waste was removed. Now, you can see the beauty of the Arctic, its icebergs and the most extreme border pillar of Russia. The Arctic, shining with beauty, opens up new secrets again. An absolutely amazing place. Look at these amazing shots. It’s a cave in a giant glacier, which was formed long before the modern history of mankind. How old is it? Up to 2000, in my opinion. — 2000 years? — It's still young.

According to scientists, the ice of the Polar Pilots Ice Cave is at least 8,000 years old. Here, every centimeter represents an epoch. And every centimeter can tell a lot about the Earth's past. These are air bubbles that represent an ancient atmosphere. In one of the layers, believe me, you can go and see, there is a visible deposit of soot. But this happened thousands of years ago, and there were no factories that emitted soot in such quantities. I would like to draw your attention to the fact that several eruptions of Mount Etna exceed all of today's humanity's anthropogenic emissions into the atmosphere. It is necessary to study all of this carefully. Going into that cave is very risky. The cave's roof, covered with heavy snow, can collapse at any moment. But at some point, Putin, Medvedev and Shoigu went to the very depths of the cave, and spent a few minutes there.





The Prime Minister and the Minister of Defense were the first ones to come out. Putin was the last one to exit the cave. Research of this cave, and the entire Franz Josef Land, is carried out by the scientists of the Russian Arctic National Park. In an environment where it seems difficult to spend even a few days, they live and work for months. I will be here until September, or maybe until the New Year. This is an old, faithful continuous track transport. Of course, we do everything with the help of this machine. These are our local pies, nuts. There is still a change of day and night, but very soon an endless polar day will begin.

The Barents Sea coast is covered with ice. It's really dangerous to be here. At any moment, polar bears can come out. It seems that the most terrible enemy here is the freezing cold, but environmentalists living in the Arctic always carry guns. Only with a gun, there is no other way. We fire in the air with a flare gun. On the doors of the ecologists' homes there are signs "Beware, bears!" One can go out to make scientific experiments only after making sure that the bears are not there. The meteorological probe rises tens of kilometers up, into near space. 40 kilometers up? Yes, 40 kilometers. — And when will it return? — It will fall. But before that, with the help of the GLONASS system, it will transmit such an amount of scientific data on the state of the planet's climate, which was simply impossible to get earlier.

The Arctic's climate now is clearly changing. According to the experts' forecasts, the Northern Sea Route will be open year round soon. The new Arctic tanker, named after the former head of the French company Total, Christophe de Margerie, pierces the ice as an icebreaker, and enters the new Russian port of Sabetta. The Arctic, according to scientists, has one-third of all world gas reserves. And for obvious reasons, is becoming one of the locomotives of the Russian economy. And for obvious reasons, Russian interests here should be reliably protected. The flag of the Russian Federation.

The northernmost permanent building in the world, is Russia's military base on Franz Josef Land. It’s shaped as a three-pointed star, the so-called Arctic trifoil, the construction of which is almost finished. 150 servicemen who can, if necessary, live completely autonomously from the mainland for a year and a half. They get water by melting snow, they have their own electrical substation, comfortable rooms, a gym, and a hospital. All rooms have their own bathrooms. The building stands on multi-meter piles, so no matter how strong the storms are, it will never be covered with snow, and the military will be able to continue service even in the most extreme conditions.

The site is very secret, therefore we can only show a few minutes of video, about the supreme commander-in-chief visiting the base. The deployment of the Bastion coastal missile systems, together with the modern ships and submarines entering the fleet, and equipped with the Caliber and Onyx complexes, will create a zone of restriction and prohibition of access in all the Arctic seas of the Russian Federation. Russia returned to the Arctic, but exclusively to its territory. It would be good if the US Secretary of Defense, who called Russia's actions in the Arctic "dangerous steps", remembers this. If what we do, is of a local nature, then what the United States does in Alaska, is of a global nature.

A missile defense system is being deployed there. The United States spends more on defense than all the countries of the world put together. Putin is sure that the Arctic can become an example of cooperation between Russia, the United States, and other countries. If only there was will.