Russia's power push into Antarctica for fossil fuelsSupergiant oilfields are simmering below the Southern Ocean, the warming waters at the bottom of the Earth that wrap around the melting, icy Antarctic, a litany of Kremlin sources suggest. Source: Moored near the foot of Table Mountain in Cape Town in mid-March, the Akademik Tryoshnikov was one among several Russian polar vessels that visited Cape Town, an established port for the Russian Antarctic fleet, in the summer of 2021/22. (Photo: Xabiso Mkhabela) Despite the 1998 Antarctic mining ban — ratified by Russia and 28 other states — some of the so-called loot in the Kremlin’s crosshairs appears cached within large marine sedimentary basins off East Antarctica’s Indian Ocean sector. That supposed loot may equal a climate-busting 500 billion barrels of hydrocarbon “resources” — the building blocks for oil and gas — claims a bombshell statement released by the Kremlin’s mineral explorer, Rosgeo. Read the original article on Daily Maverick |