Russia upgraded their Northern Fleet to a military district in its authority. I'll bet it is all about the nukes.
On January 1, 2021, Russia’s Northern Fleet was officially upgraded to the status of a Military District (MD), as part of a reorganization of the overall system of MDs. This marks a significant change to the national organizational structure of the MDs in Russia; and it marks the first major shift away from the concept of reducing and simplifying the number and functions of these, which, since 2010, have also had the status of Joint Strategic Commands (Obyedinennyye Strategicheskoye Komandovanie—OSK). The reform in 2010 reduced the number of Russian MDs from six to four (Western, Southern, Central and Eastern) and subordinated all military units and assets within each MD to the contiguous, respective OSK. In effect, the Northern Fleet has now gained both the status of an MD and OSK, and this may well be a prelude to future organizational modifications within the Russian Armed Forces (Interfax, January 4, 2021).
As the report notes, this has an Arctic focus and there is emphasis on submarines. But this is key:
On January 4, Admiral Moiseev stated that the primary task of the Northern Fleet will remain to maintain the combat readiness of the naval strategic nuclear forces[.]
I assume this is administrative upgrade is primarily to protect Russia's nuclear deterrent force. Everything else up there is secondary. Russia needs to defend a Barents Sea--and perhaps beyond--bastion in which its nuclear ballistic submarines can safely sail, to make sure that even if Russia's land-based nukes are wiped out in a first strike that Russia can retaliate. These naval developments and tactics are well suited to protecting the bastion:
Russia has been practicing using networks [of] ships, aircraft and satellites to monitor the position of enemy ships and enable surface ships to remain silent for as long as possible. That means a Russian corvette would never be operating alone. Rather it would be part of a battle-group that could also involve submarines posted at locations passive (just listening) sonar could detect enemy warships and launch Kalibr missiles via their torpedo tubes. If an enemy ship was close enough the subs could use torpedoes. These new tactics involve enabling the “shooters” to remain silent and concealed as long as possible while using expendable UAVs or other sensors, like land or space-based radars to do the spotting.
This administrative change and fleet evolution make sense given the importance of nuclear weapons to secure Russia's borders in the absence of sufficient conventional power to guard their long borders--especially in the Far East.
Will Russia take a similar administrative action with its Pacific Fleet to focus on defending a Sea of Okhotsk bastion? The Russians were rather antsy about an American aerial Freedom of Navigation Operation out that way in the summer. And in November the Russians were riled up over a surface challenge to Russian sea claims in the nearby Sea of Japan.
