Arctic explorers return to hero's welcome in Moscow

Arctic explorers return to hero's welcome in Moscow 

MOSCOW: Russian explorers who planted a flag beneath the ice at the North Pole returned to a hero's welcome in Moscow on Tuesday and shrugged off foreign criticism of their mission.

"The Arctic always was Russian, and it will remain Russian," the expedition leader, Artur Chilingarov, said after arriving at Vnukovo airport near Moscow, where well-wishers brandished bottles of champagne and Russian flags.

"I am happy that we placed a Russian flag on the ocean floor, where no one has ever been before, and I couldn't care less what some foreigners say."

Russia wants to extend right up to the North Pole the territory it controls in the Arctic, believed to hold vast resources of oil and natural gas that are expected to become more accessible as climate change melts the ice cap.

A mechanical arm of a small submarine dropped a Russian flag on the Arctic seabed at a depth of 4,261 meters, or 13,980 feet, last week, staking a symbolic claim to the energy riches of the Arctic.

But the move has provoked criticism from abroad.

Foreign Minister Peter Mackay of Canada has said Russia was behaving like a 15th-century explorer. In Washington, a State Department spokesman, Tom Casey, said: "A metal flag, a rubber flag or a bed sheet on the ocean floor" did not have "any legal standing or effect on this claim."

In remarks broadcast on state television, President Vladimir Putin congratulated the team of explorers, saying "Your work was interesting, crucial, important for the country and not without risk."

But Putin, in more cautious remarks, also said the team's achievement would provide the groundwork for Russia's official position on who owns the Arctic Ocean seabed. "This, of course, must be discussed with our colleagues and be proven in international bodies," he said, according to the Russian media.