Russians in the West Arctic 2 (final update)

An update on the Russian expedition that is stranded in North Greenland

Greenland Police has announced the outcome of the interception of the car expedition that tried to enter North Greenland and intended to traverse the Ice Cap. Allegedly coming from the North Pole, the expedition touched terra firma in the absolute north a week ago. As per the police, they failed in not arriving at a designated border post. So the Danish Defence dog sledge patrol intercepted the expedition and directed them to the border post at Station Nord, a few hundred miles further to the East.

Upon arrival at Station Nord the police reports that the team was denied entry into the Schengen Area, the free movement area of the EU. Secondly, the expedition has no permit to enter the protected area, and not the Ice Cap at all. A such permit must be applied for in due time before any attempt of entry. An insurance deposit must also be paid, which amounts to significant part of the expedition cost in cases like this. The reason is that search and rescue operations (SAR) are extremely difficult, risky and costly in the Artic.

It is indeed very strange that the Russian expedition seems not to have investigated these well known and very simple rules before embarking on such a travel plan. There is no mention of this planning failure in the diary of the expedition. They simply say that they had to abort the plan after dialogue with the authorities (at the border station, ed.) allegedly being told that the authorities does not have sufficient capacity and capabilities to handle SAR in the area. The expedition is not completely open and honest about their intentions and plans, it seems.

Final remarks: The police states that the expedition party has now left Station Nord by airplane. From this follows that the stated aim of traversing the Globe without leaving the surface of the Earth is now abandoned, which seems to be a total failure.

Note on North Greenland - it is a National Park, protected by special rules like any other national park. Only this one is the with 972,000 square kilometers in size the largest in the world. Planning such a trip without investigating the conditions for entry and travel seems very high-risk, to say the least. The Russian expedition has some explaining to do, and we will keep an eye on the possible developments. Right now, there is a SAR effort ongoing to save a badly injured Italian explorer on the ice, who has a permit and insurance premium paid. In the last decade, there have also been other incidents, including one where an (Italian) mountaineer group was fined for not following the rules when attempting to climb a Nunatak (mountain sticking up through the Ice Cap) without permission.

The main Greenlandic newspaper Sermitsiaq now reports in a very small update to their earlier article that the Russian ‘Transglobal Car Expedition has been definitely denied entry into Greenland.

The Ice Cap is always treacherous with dangerous weather, extremely strong winds, and whiteouts. There is no secure route to follow, and you have to travel very slow and carefully in order to avoid crevasses. The amphibious vehicles used by the expedition are not suitable for inland ice, because unlike at sea, they cannot be recovered when they fall into a crevasse, a deep crack in the glacier.

The expedition homepage was updated yesterday with a changed route that does not traverse Greenland. In stead, the plan seems to be to somehow get from Station Nord to Svalbard and then possibly sail to Denmark and recoup the originally planned route. The latest newsletter from the expedition now writes that they have abandoned the Greenland plan for now, and they see no possible plan for reaching Svalbard by sea or over the sea ice. The hope to be able to negotiate a solution with the Danish authorities (sic! the Greenland authorities decide on access to the National Park) for next year, 2025.

Screen dump from the TGC https://transglobalcar.com/ website.

Svalbard is a Norwegian group of islands, permanently inhabited by both Norwegians and Russians and other nationalities. By treaty, Svalbard is Norwegian but is freely accessible for all nations. There is a Russian mining town which seems to be slowly emptying of people, probably because of a decrease in mining activity. Finally, Svalbard is officially de-militarized.

See also the first post on this subject.