Arctic and global security top agenda as Trudeau meets Nordic leaders in Iceland

Arctic security and Russia's invasion in Ukraine were top of mind as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau arrived in Iceland Sunday for a two-day summit with Nordic leaders.

Arctic security and Russia's invasion of Ukraine were top of mind as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau arrived in Iceland Sunday for a two-day summit with Nordic leaders.

Trudeau is a guest at the annual meeting of leaders from Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark, where global security was already high on the agenda before 24 hours of chaos in Russia threw even more uncertainty into the mix.

At the beginning of a bilateral meeting with Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo, Trudeau said the complicated events in Russia over the last two days will form a large part of the meeting's discussions.

"We're watching carefully the situation in Russia right now as it's been complex over the past couple of days," he said.

On Saturday Trudeau convened his government's incident response group, and G7 foreign ministers held a call as the world kept watch on news out of Russia of an armed rebellion by the mercenary Wagner Group that has been helping the Russian military invade Ukraine.

Wagner Chief Yevgeny Prigozhin led his troops through several Russian cities and got within 200 kilometres of Moscow Saturday before calling the whole thing off, allegedly through a deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

It remains unclear exactly what Prigozhin intended with his armed march and what effect it will have longer term on Putin's hold on power or his ongoing invasion of Ukraine.