The war in Ukraine is reverberating in the Arctic

to a cold-war mode,” says Jens-Arne Hoilund, Norway’s Border Commissioner. Mr Hoilund’s job is to resolve any problems that arise along his country’s short but remote border with Russia. That used to mean such things as retrieving errant reindeer that ambled into Russian territory on the far side of the icy Pasvik River in search of fresher lichen. Since March, however, contact with the other side has been minimal. “Getting back to the relationship that we had will take years,” he says. “If it is even possible.” The Arctic had been a rare area of successful co-operation between Russia and the West, but now the fragile system that has made it stable and predictable is under threat. “The cold winds in the north did not originate there,” quips Norway’s prime minister, Jonas Gahr Store, speaking to from his office almost 2,000km to the south in Oslo. “No issue, no region, no matter of co-operation is unaffected by Ukraine,” he adds, “and what the full implications will be for the Arctic, we are yet to know the full extent.”