Russia Claims Top O' The World

[FSTargetDrone]

Well, not exactly:

Associated Press

Russian Subs Seek Glory at North Pole

By DOUGLAS BIRCH 08.02.07, 5:20 PM ET

MOSCOW -

Two small Russian submarines completed a risky voyage deep below the North Pole Thursday, planting their country's flag in a titanium capsule on the Arctic Ocean floor to symbolically claim what could be vast energy reserves beneath the seabed.

The subs dove some 2 1/2 miles to the Arctic shelf, where they collected geologic and water samples and dropped the yard-long canister. After spending most of the day below water, they surfaced near the pole, guided from the murky depths by four radio beacons on the perimeter of a football field-sized hole cut in the thick Arctic pack ice.

"It was so good down there," expedition leader Artur Chilingarov, 68, a famed polar scientist, said after coming back, according to the state-owned ITAR-Tass news service. "If someone else goes down there in 100 or 1,000 years, he will see our Russian flag."

Warming global temperatures have made the region, a frozen terra incognita for most of human history, increasingly open to shipping and energy exploration.

Thursday's dive was part serious scientific expedition and part political theater. But it could mark the start of a fierce legal scramble for control of the sea bed among nations that border the Arctic, including Russia, the U.S., Canada, Norway and Denmark, through its territory Greenland.

Canada dismissed the flag-planting as empty showmanship, and the U.S. said Russia's move had no legal importance regardless of whether it planted "a metal flag, a rubber flag or a bedsheet."

Chilingarov, who surfaced to cheers from colleagues aboard the polar research vessel Akademik Fyodorov, spent 8 hours and 40 minutes submerged with his two crew mates, ITAR-Tass said, with the last 40 minutes used to find the break in the ice. The second sub and its three-member crew, including a Swede and an Australian, surfaced more than an hour after the first, after about 9 1/2 hours under the ice.

Expedition organizers said the greatest risk was being trapped under the ice and running out of air. Each of the subs, which had 72-hour air supplies, spent about 40 minutes on the sea floor, said Sergei Balyasnikov, a spokesman for Russia's Institute of the Arctic and Antarctic which organized the expedition. He said the crews were in good physical condition.

The expedition received intense coverage in the media here. While some Russians were blase, others expressed pride.

"Russia is a great power which needs resources, territories and the prospect of its development determines its action," Muscovite Yevgeny Gaziyev told The Associated Press.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said during a visit to Manila, Philippines that the expedition should substantiate Russia's claim that the Eurasian continental shelf, which is under its jurisdiction, extends to the North Pole.

"I think this expedition will supply additional scientific evidence for our aspirations," Lavrov said in televised remarks. He added that the issue of which nation what portion of the polar region "will be resolved in strict compliance with international law."

A U.S. State Department spokesman, Tom Casey, said that the Russian government was entitled to submit its claim but he dismissed the significance of planting a flag in the North Pole seabed.

"I'm not sure whether they put a metal flag, a rubber flag or a bedsheet on the ocean floor," he said. "Either way it doesn't have any legal standing."

Peter Mackay, Canada's minister of foreign affairs, dismissed the voyage to the Arctic floor as "just a show."

"Look, this isn't the 15th century," he said, according to the Web site of Canadian Television. "You can't go around the world and just plant flags and say 'We're claiming this territory.'"

Canada's own claims to the Arctic, he said, were "well-established."

"This is posturing," he said. "They're fooling themselves if they think dropping a flag on the ocean floor is going to change anything."

Chilingarov told colleagues on the surface that his craft, the Mir-1, had reached the seabed about 2 1/2 hours after beginning his drive.

"The landing was smooth, the yellowish ground is around us, no sea dwellers are seen," he said, according to the ITAR-Tass news agency. Mir-2 reached the bottom about a half hour later.

The subs and their three-member crews each spent about an hour in the murky depths. They had planned to conduct a study of the water chemistry, biology and geology near the seabed at the pole, according to Russia's Institute of the Arctic and Antarctic, which organized the expedition.

Russian researchers also planned to use the dive to help map the Lomonosov ridge, a 1,240-mile underwater mountain range that crosses the polar region. The ridge was discovered by the Soviets in 1948 and named after a famed 18th-century Russian scientist, Mikhail Lomonosov.

In December 2001, Moscow claimed that the ridge was an extension of the Eurasian continent, and therefore part of Russia's continental shelf under international law. The U.N. rejected Moscow's claim, citing a lack of evidence, but Russia is set to resubmit it in 2009.

If recognized, the claim would give Russia control of more than 460,000 square miles, representing almost half of the Arctic seabed. Little is known about the ocean floor near the pole, but by some estimates it could contain vast oil and gas deposits.

Chilingarov became a hero of the Soviet Union in the 1980s after successfully leading an expedition aboard a research vessel that was trapped for a time in Antarctic sea ice. He is a deputy speaker of the Duma, Russia's lower house of parliament.

The Mir-1 reached a depth of 13,980 feet Thursday, Tass reported. The Mir-2 went deeper, to 14,144 feet below the surface.

The deepest dive on record, according to several sources, was by the bathyscaphe Trieste, which in January 1960 descended 35,810 feet into the Mariana Trench in the Pacific.

[MKSheppard]

And cAnada is going to enforce the sovereignity it claims over the Arctic how?

[brianeyci]

Pretty simple, at least for the Canadian Archipelago. Unlike the Russians, we're not stupid and think submerging some subs under sea level gives any claim to territory at all (or maybe the Russians do know it's a PR stunt and are riling up their fanbase, who knows.) First thing is have people living there, which we do with the Rangers with Lee Enfields. Conduct army exercises up there every now and then, with regular army supported by the Rangers. But most importantly, a country's borders are recognized by other nations. If everybody but the US says something and the US says another thing, we win. Same with Russia. Unilateralism will lose.

In peace, it doesn't matter if a country has submarines or aircraft carriers if they don't want to keep them there 24/7. I'd be far more impressed if they set up a permanent settlement in disupted territory, or actually found oil and started drilling. Then the shit would really hit the fan. Canadians still remember how eurotrash drove the cod industry to total shit, and if there's a real oil discovery you can bet the military could be ordered to intercept civilian contractors attempting to steal resources. Then the ball would be in Russia's or the US's court, whether they would send military forces and start a full international crisis.

[J]

And cAnada is going to enforce the sovereignity it claims over the Arctic how?

Killer attack Narwhals.

[FSTargetDrone]

And cAnada is going to enforce the sovereignity it claims over the Arctic how?

I think it's high time the Canadians go down there, pluck that titanium-encased sea flag from the sea floor, haul it up and display it on the steps on their Parliament building!

[CaptJodan]

I guess this means the US can claim the moon as exclusively our own then? Where are the taxes from other countries being paid to us for the use of our moon and the tides it brings?

[Vympel]

Unlike the Russians, we're not stupid and think submerging some subs under sea level gives any claim to territory at all (or maybe the Russians do know it's a PR stunt and are riling up their fanbase, who knows.) First thing is have people living there, which we do with the Rangers with Lee Enfields. Conduct army exercises up there every now and then, with regular army supported by the Rangers.

Russia does have troops in the Arctic Circle region, you know.

Anyway- the flag wasn't meant to be some sort of legal statement - the purpose of the expedition was to investigate the extent of the Eurasian continental shelf. If they can prove what they claim, then they win.

[Illuminatus Primus]

And cAnada is going to enforce the sovereignity it claims over the Arctic how?

Who do you think we're going to side with in a resource/energy squabble? I think we'd rather deal with corporations in Canada than the Russian state energy firms and the bullshit that Europe is dealing with.

[SylasGaunt]

The ruskies claim the North Pole? Wait.. the red suit, the commune style elf quarters the lack of wages... Santa's a commie!


In all seriousness though it should be interesting to see where this goes.

[Elaro]

And cAnada is going to enforce the sovereignity it claims over the Arctic how?

Killer attack Narwhals.

With support from our armored Polar Bear Division.

Ok, I stop now.

[CaptainChewbacca]

It reminds me of the Eddie Izzard standup bit:

"We claim this land for England!"
"You can't claim it! We live here?"
"Do you have a flag?"
"No..."
"No flag, no country. That's the rule I made up just now."

[FSTargetDrone]

And cAnada is going to enforce the sovereignity it claims over the Arctic how?

Killer attack Narwhals.

With support from our armored Polar Bear Division.

Ok, I stop now.

This is utter nonsense. Obviously, the hybrids of "Operation Infinite Walrus"are the answer:

[Oni Koneko Damien]

"I claim the Arctic for Russia!"
"You can't claim it! We own it, Canada's had sovereignty for years now!"
"Do you have a flag?"
"Flag? We don't need a flag, it's our land you bastards."
"No flag no country, that's the rules that I just made up...and I'm backing it up with this sub leant to me by...the national engineer's association."

Ah fuck, Chewie beat me to it.

[Mange]

I just heard on the Finnish news (what little I could grasp) that filmed material from submarines that the Russians claims come from the Arctic expedition in reality originates from the '95 Titanic expedition (for the filming of the wreck for the movie). I don't know the substance of that claim.

[Rin]

Shortly about the wrong material:

Reuters admits that it published pictures of the expedition that were originally taken in Northern Atlantic over ten years ago while searching Titanic. Same picture had been in movie Titanic (1997). Submarines used then were same as the ones used in current expedition. (But modified somewhat, as one of the sub designers (Finn) explained while interviewed and pointing out some shots that were old from the new ones. Current sub for example has two extra thrusters at top rear section.)

Reuters claims that it got the material from Russian national RTR-TV channel with notes that it was from Arctic sea and taken "recently".

Sources in Finnish:
yle.fi/uutiset
Yle TV News (About 1/4 from start.)