Britain is sending a military expert on threats posed by Russia and China in the Arctic to work in the British High Commission in Ottawa.

The U.K. is dispatching Nick Diggle, a former Royal Navy officer and research specialist in Arctic security, to Ottawa in September, in a sign of closer co-operation on security issues.

The move follows a warning from Canada’s defence chief that protecting Canada’s Arctic region is a key concern for the Armed Forces.

At a conference in Ottawa in March, General Wayne Eyre warned that Russia has reoccupied abandoned Cold War bases in its Far North.

He said the threat of a Russian incursion into Canada’s Arctic from the North is very low, though it could not be ruled out in decades to come.

Diggle has been researching how the U.K. and Canada can work together to combat threats from Russia and China in the Arctic at the Changing Character of War Centre in England.