Extremist lawmaker wants to rename Svalbard

Sergei Mironov, who sits in the State Duma, Russia's parliamentary chamber below the Federation Council, has proposed Russian names for places across the Arctic. Svalbard is one of them: he wants the Norwegian archipelago to be called the Pomor Islands. The Barents Observer reports that he leads the party A Just Russia, For Truth.

Mironov also suggests that the Arctic Ocean become the Russian Arctic Ocean, and that Franz Josef Land be renamed Lomonosov Land. The Pomors, The Barents Observer explains, lived traditionally along the White Sea. Most were fishermen, and for centuries they traded a lot with Norwegians.

He made the proposal in a Telegram comment and said he took inspiration from Donald Trump, the new US president, who recently announced that the Gulf of Mexico would be renamed the Gulf of America. According to Mironov, Trump is moving his geopolitical contest into geography and toponymy, and Russia should act in the same area, above all in the Arctic. He described the region as vital to Russia and as land acquired by Russian forefathers in ancient times. In his words, Russian authority has to show in geographical names. Russians already use the name Spitsbergen for the archipelago, but he considers that insufficient.

The Barents Observer states that Svalbard belongs fully to Norway. Under the Svalbard Treaty of 1920, citizens and companies from the signatory countries may carry out economic activity there. Trust Arktikugol (Russia's state-owned company on Svalbard) currently runs coal mining and tourism in Barentsburg.

The Barents Observer also gives background on Mironov. He is a longtime ally of the Kremlin and of Vladimir Putin's United Russia party, and he supports the full-scale war against Ukraine. Earlier he also backed Yevgeny Prigozhin and the Wagner Group. According to The Barents Observer, he and his wife reportedly took two Ukrainian children, both small, from occupied territories in 2022 and later adopted them. He appears on the sanctions lists of many countries, among them the USA, the EU, the UK and Japan. The Barents Observer adds that Putin's people have fully controlled the Duma since the 2021 elections.