MOSCOW – An ambitious Russian naval expedition that set off for the North Pole to explore the bottom of the Arctic Ocean and stake Moscow’s claim to oil and natural gas riches under the seabed ground to a halt Wednesday when a ship broke down.
The research ship Akademik Fyodorov suffered engine failure a day after it sailed from Murmansk and was drifting in the Barents Sea about 60 nautical miles from the shore, state-run Rossiya television reported.
A nuclear-powered icebreaker, which was leading the expedition, turned back to help and was expected to reach the stricken vessel today.
“We are heading back to Akademik Fyodorov to give it technical assistance,” said expedition leader Russian lawmaker Artur Chilingarov, who is onboard the icebreaker.
The mission is aimed at finding evidence that the seabed is geographically linked to Russia and thus part of its territory.
“The Arctic is Russian,” Chilingarov, Russia’s most famous explorer, said before setting sail. “We must prove the North Pole is an extension of the Russian coastal shelf.”
Two mini-submarines were expected to be launched from Akademik Fyodorov on Sunday to confirm the work of an earlier expedition, which said it found the link between the Eurasian continent and the underwater Lomonosov Ridge that runs across the North Pole.
Russian scientists have long maintained that Moscow has a right to mineral riches beneath a chunk of the Arctic seabed the size of Germany, France and Italy combined. The region is estimated to contain up to 10 billion cubic meters of hydrocarbons, along with diamonds and metal ores.
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