Russia’s $118 Billion Arctic Oil Bet Pushes Ahead Despite Sanctions

For the Kremlin, the giant Vostok Oil project in the frigid Far North is crucial to two goals: bolstering Russia’s presence in the Arctic and keeping production of the key export commodity going as reserves in more accessible parts of the country are depleted. It’s also a case study of how a huge, state-run corporation like Rosneft -- headed by Igor Sechin, a longtime ally of President Vladimir Putin -- goes about putting such an enterprise in place amid increasingly tight Western sanctions over Russia’s war on Ukraine, an RFE/RL…