Compiled 23 November 2025, updated 15 January 2026
I had written about Svalbard in early 2025, having been there in person the previous year:
“Gianni Albertini, Enrico‘s father, was my great-uncle; the husband of my beloved grandmother Luisa Quintavalle‘s twin sister, Aunt Ida Quintavalle in Albertini.
…
Last summer – in July 2024 – I was in Svalbard with part of my family and, talking to one of the two guides, I mentioned to her the expedition of my great-uncle the explorer, aboard the whaler Heimen – Sucai.
One day, to my surprise, after many stories told on board the boat we were on, about the history of the region, the Swedish, British or Norwegian explorers, at the two poles, and a tasty viewing of the old film ‘The Red Tent‘ about Umberto Nobile‘s expedition, I was told that we were in ‘Albertlinibutka’ , or Albertini Bay, located at the northernmost tip of Svalbard, pictured below.
It was a very important moment for me: after the writing and presentations of my book ‘Le Ossa dei Caprotti’ published by Feltrinelli, I began a journey of re-evaluation of my family.
In that magical context … the figure of my great uncle contributed substantially to ending this existential journey of reconciliation and forgiveness.
I immediately wrote to Gianni’s son, Enrico…’. telling him of my desire to write about it butunfortunately he passed away before I could see him again.
Below: Gianni Albertini with part of his crew, at the time of the expedition with the whaler Heimen- Sucai.
… You have to walk on the Longyearbreen glacier, high above the village, to really experience the Far North. Léo Decaux [ glaciologist] loads his rifle and shows off his flare gun, which is obligatory outside in case of an encounter with a polar bear. On the day of the excursion, snow falls copiously, covering the landscape in white. But the powder ‘won’t last through the summer’, warns the glaciologist.
The mass balance of the archipelago’s 2,200 glaciers is negative: they are melting more than they are accumulating.
Le Monde of 13 November 2025 : svalbard has warmed by 4 degrees in the last 30 years
In 2024, they recorded the largest annual mass loss of any glacial region in the world. Longyearbreen, like others, is “in its terminal phase”, says Léo Decaux.
It is difficult to imagine the end of these giants at such high latitudes. Yet. Svalbard is now 53% ice-covered, compared to 60% ten years ago. Under the current warming scenario of 2.5 °C by the end of the century, between 30% and 50% of their ice mass is expected to disappear.
This upheaval, 3,300 kilometres from Paris, ‘affects us too’, warns Léo Decaux. “The Arctic plays a role in regulating the Earth’s temperature and stabilising the climate. Less ice and snow means more warming and more extreme weather events here.”
In Longyearbyen, the administrative capital of Svalbard, 60 kilometres from Borebreen, the thermometer has already risen by about 4 °C over the last 30 years and by almost 10 °C during winters.
“Currently, the warming rate is five to eight times faster here in winter than the global average,” calculates Kim Holmen, the iconic meteorologist of the Norwegian Polar Institute, recognisable by his long grey beard.
2024 broke all records: globally, first of all, as it was the warmest year ever recorded and the first to exceed the 1.5 °C warming threshold included in the Paris Agreement on climate change. And on a local level: temperatures exceeded 20 °C at Longyearbyen Airport, while seasonal averages were between 6 °C and 9 °C.
How can we explain these impressive figures? First of all, there is Arctic amplification, which acts like a vicious circle: the disappearance of ice and snow due to warming limits the reflection of the sun’s rays, thus increasing the temperature and causing further melting.
But if the 61,000-square-kilometre archipelago is the fastest warming Arctic region, it is also because “it is influenced by a current whose waters come from the Gulf Stream and these waters are getting warmer,” explains Kim Holmen.
“We are at the epicentre of climate change.It is like projecting ourselves into the future of a disaster scenario, but here it is real,” says French glaciologist and guide Léo Decaux, who has been studying Svalbard for eleven years
The islands have other characteristics too: they are a territory that is formally part of Norway but that does not place them within the Schengen borders, having a separate status stemming from the Svalbard treaty.
At the time, all signatories had the right, as did Norway, to colonise Svalbard and develop its economy;
However, the only country to take this possibility seriously was the Soviet Union, whose settlements in Barentsburg and Pyramiden reached several thousand inhabitants; for a time, the most widely spoken language on Svalbard was Russian. During the Cold War, the Soviets made up two-thirds of the islands’ population (the remaining third were Norwegians), which amounted to about 4,000 people.
The Russians on Svalbard mined coal.
Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the discontinuation of subsidies, the Russian population was reduced from about 2,500 to 450 from 1990 to 2010, and Pyramiden was abandoned altogether. The two Soviet-era sites are considered Russian and cannot be visited.
Svalbard is by treaty militarily neutral, and therefore no military personnel of any state are present in the archipelago.
The photo of the Barentsburg site – below – is taken from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Barentsburg_Lenin.jpg, whose author is Svein-Magne Tunli.
Melting ice in the Arctic will facilitate northern trade routes and Russia is well placed to exploit the consequences of climate change as Federico Fubini points out in Corriere della Sera:
The Russian mystery in the Red Sea: is Moscow helping the Houthis against the West?
There is one corner of chaos that is absolutely unchanged. Neither US and European naval missions, nor Anglo-American bombings, nor Israeli attacks seem to have changed anything. The Houthis, the militias that control much of Yemen, continue from the Strait of Bab el-Mandeb to block the transit that connects the Mediterranean and Suez to the Gulf of Aden, to the Indian Ocean from there and to East Asia where almost half of the world’s manufactured goods are produced and the fastest growing markets are found.
Russia plays a silent but decisive role in this blockade, which has been going on for two years. According to data from the International Monetary Fund, until the end of 2023 about 80 ships a week, including merchant ships and oil tankers, passed through Bab el-Mandeb: it was the main connection from Chinese ports to the Italians, two weeks faster and cheaper than the circumnavigation of Africa to Gibraltar. However, since the Houthis from the headlands of the Arabian peninsula started to launch missiles or drones at the ships, the transits have plummeted from 80 to 30 per week and have not recovered. The threat of Yemen’s guerrillas has withstood billions of dollars invested by Western governments to remove it.
According to unconfirmed but persistent rumours, the Houthis demand a bribe from companies not to attack. How is this possible? Part of the explanation has to be sought in Russia, which is helping the Houthis. According to Reuters, in late September Moscow, with the mediation of Iran, discussed sending Yakhont missiles (which are very effective against ships) to the Yemeni guerrillas. And in late October Yemeni Vice-President Aidarus Al-Zubaidi was in Moscow, received by the Russian government at the highest level.
Where is the Kremlin’s interest in all this? Destabilising and weakening European economies as much as possible, no doubt (Italy included). But also to strengthen the attractiveness of the Arctic route, under its control, which is opening up between China and Europe: for Italian ports this would be a defeat.
It would be for the whole of Europe: does anyone remember Trump’s (*) utterances on Greenland? Danish territory borders Svalbard… And indeed, Arctic leaders have raised the alarm: the threat of a hybrid war, including sabotage of submarine internet cables by Russia and others, is moving from the Baltic Sea to the far north. Denmark and Greenland plan to build a new data cable between them, and the remote Faroe Islands are in talks to run the line through their archipelago to strengthen their resilience against potential attacks, according to the islands’ prime minister.
The US, China and Russia are banking on Arctic routes and territories. And Arctic resources crop up in Trump’s ‘peace agreement’ proposal to Zelenskyi (Corriere della Sera, 16 November 2025).
(*) The appointment of a US special envoy to Greenland triggers outrage in Denmark. In a message on X, Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry, appointed by Donald Trump, stated that his goal was ‘to integrate Greenland into the United States’. In response, the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs summoned the US ambassador to Copenhagen.
Below: January 2026 tension rises between Norway and Russia at and on Svalbard
