Still fresh in his new role as Defence Minister of the Russian Federation, Sergei Shoygu has recently reversed some decisions made by his apparently wilfully incomptent predecesor, Anatoly Serdyukov. One such reversal is the revocation of the plan, announced in September 2012, to redeploy MiG-31 interceptors to Novaya Zemlya. According to the military, neither the aircraft nor the airbase of Rogachevo on the remote Arcitc islands are anywhere near ready to accommodate such a deployment.
Some commentators might be led to think that, owing to the fact that the fiercest rhetoric on the Arctic comes from the Generals and Admirals of the RF, that they would be the most willing to project Russia's military capabilities in the region. However, according to Russian military sources, it appears that the initial MiG-31 decision was entirely political and had not been agreed to by the Air Force High Command. It seems that the Hawks are in the Kremlin as much as in the Arbat. It also adds further doubt to the official reason for the re-deployment of the MiG-31 which was given as missile defence That itself was likely a figleaf for the real purpose of power projection in the Arctic Ocean to support the wider political and strategic objectives of the RF.
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