Call for Arctic Council to include Russian Indigenous groups in exile in working groups

May 12 marks the end of Norway’s two-year chairship of the Arctic Council. A closed virtual meeting between all eight Arctic states will be arranged and the chair handed over to Denmark, including Greenland. It is not immediately clear from the press-kit from the Arctic Council in which position, if at all, Russia will participate in the session. In its fourth year of full-scale war against Ukraine, Moscow is still officially engaged in the the intergovernmental body, although not involving politicians. Norway, who took over the chair from Russia in 2023, has over the last two years restarted contacts on non-political level in some of the working groups under the Council.