The Practicalities of Arctic Spying

It has been a year, reader. 'Secure underground seclusion' has its pros, such as my continued being alive, and its cons, such as raging cabin fever and scurvy. I have come back above ground to resume my work.

The back-room power struggling continues. On the one side, Chief Russian spy Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, and the security forces ("Siloviki"): they're mysterious, they work in the shadows, both figuratively and literally. They bring down oil companies and pull bureaucratic strings. On the other side, the "Civiliki", technocrats and democrats, individuals with civilian backgrounds rather than KGB ones. With them is now-President Dmitry Medvedev. Where Putin's international approach tended to involve death threats and military dick-waving competitions, Medvedev's approach involves sitting down for hamburgers with US President Barack Obama.

I digress. Upon rejoining the above-ground world, I found that the main issue of contention now seems to be the Arctic. Delegations from Russia have been heading down for (ostensibly) any number of reasons, from cartography to science... but the most recent have been accompanied by a sizable and somewhat suspicious military presence.

Arctic spying, of course, is an entirely different kettle of spies: the snow provides camouflage, providing a spy covers his nose when prey is nearby. The winds are bitter and the weather is harsh. The practicalities of Arctic spying can be gruelling.

Above: Arctic Spying at its most intense. An estimate places the density of Russian spies in the Arctic at around 12 per km², far fewer than in warmer climes.