The Arctic Ocean has turned into an officially disputed and increasingly violent area for years now. And on Sunday, it was invaded. But this time, the invaders were Russian.
From Russia Today:
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu declared that the country’s aircraft had seen floating objects in the sea north of Baffin Island. It was then that the Russian bombers conducted a simulated attack on Canada, heading to the Arctic archipelago of Ellesmere Island. The comments were made during a meeting with Canadian Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan in Moscow on Sunday.
The reason Canada was targeted? Because this happened less than three weeks after a United Nations treaty went into effect. That treaty is the Law of the Sea Convention. It ratified in 2012, but the vote was never ratified by the United States. Of course, signing the agreement made it more obvious that the United States had a historical problem with this treaty, but the fact that there was a treaty at all made things really stickier. And already in the past few weeks, the United States has complained about changes in laws and rules the treaty brought into effect.
You can see some video of the Russian bombers’ voyage here, in order to understand how they stopped flying for a short time in order to take on the fiction that they were acting in self-defense. This is made clear by a short clip that appears at the end of the Russian segment:
Update: Apparently, the Russians dropped a bomb at the crash site of the Russian jet. And here is a video of that bomb, and a warning about all the radiation: