![]() ![]() Moscow argued before a UN commission in 2001 that waters off its northern coast were in fact an extension of its maritime territory. President Vladimir Putin has already described the urgent need for Russia to secure its "strategic, economic, scientific and defence interests" in the Arctic. "This may sound grandiloquent but for me this is like placing a flag on the moon, this is really a massive scientific achievement," Sergei Balyasnikov, a spokesman for Russia's Arctic and Antarctic Institute, told Reuters news agency. The vessels risked being trapped beneath the Arctic ice sheet unless they could navigate back to the exact gap in the ice where they set off from. The submarines' return from the seabed to the surface was regarded as the most dangerous part of the journey. Russian media reported last week that the ships were briefly tailed by foreign aircraft, but this claim was played down by the expedition leader. Scientists aboard the submarines had also planned to collect samples of Arctic flora and fauna. The expedition set off last week from the port of Murmansk in search of geological evidence to back up Moscow's claims to the resource-rich Arctic seabed. The mini-submarines, Mir-I and Mir-II, were brought to the North Pole by the two ships in the Russian expedition - a nuclear-powered ice-breaker and a research vessel. "The yellowish ground is around us, no sea dwellers are seen," he said. He earlier told Itar-Tass that his mini-submarine had a "smooth" landing on the seabed. ![]()
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