“For more than 100 years, Russia has illegally occupied Wrangel Island, an American-claimed island in the Arctic, and has now fortified it with a military base…Russia’s Ushakovskoye facility on Wrangel Island starkly illustrates Arctic imperialism: a protected sanctuary despoiled by an illegal, military base on disputed American territory.” — Brandon J. Weichert, for The National Interest, September 3, 2025.

Wrangel Island, in the Arctic Ocean between the Chukchi Sea and East Siberian Sea, is positioned 310 miles northwest of Alaska, and only 88 miles from the Siberian coastline of Billings, Russia. It measures 92 miles long by 50 miles wide. On August 14, 1867, American whaling ship captain Thomas W. Long discovered the island and named it for Baron Ferdinand von Wrangel, Baltic-German e

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