Commentary
International Meeting of the AC Member States in
September 2015 in Archangelsk
Lassi Heininen
The V [Fifth] International Meeting of Representatives of the States-Members of the Arctic Council,
States-Observers and Foreign Scientific Community took place on September 15-16, 2015 in
Archangelsk, Russia. The meeting was specially devoted to preparedness and safety in the Arctic,
sustainable development and indigenous peoples. It consisted of two parts, the demonstration of
rescue exercises by the EMERCOM Arctic Emergency Centre in Arkhangelsk, and the international
conference “Ensuring Safety and Sustainable Development in the Arctic Region, Preservation the
Ecosystems and Traditional Way of Life of the Indigenous Peoples in the North”.
The high-level meeting was organized under the auspices of the Russian Federation Security Council
in cooperation with the Northern (Arctic) Federal University, NArFU in Archangelsk. NArFU invited
members of small international delegations from the Arctic states and the Arctic Council observer
countries, as it did last year, when this annual meeting took place in Naryan-Nar, and the Varandei Oil
Terminal in the Nenets Autonomous Okrug.
The demonstration of rescue exercises by Arkhangelsk’s EMERCOM Arctic Emergency Centre took
place on a sunny afternoon on the Dvina river just beside downtown Arkhangelsk. We had front row
seats to follow the exercise, since we were on board of the 2N.V.Gogol” paddle steamship in the
middle of the river. The situation and accident was simple but realistic: there was a fire on board of a
tanker, and a few crew members of the tanker were dropped down to the sea, when they tried to put
out the fire. Following from this, the mission of the exercise was two-fold: on the one hand, to put
out the fire, which was done both by a helicopter and aircraft dropping water from the tanks on the
Lassi Heininen is the Editor of the Arctic Yearbook. He is Professor of Arctic Politics at the University of Lapland and
Chair of the Thematic Network on Arctic Geopolitics and Security.