Russia bids for vast Arctic territories at UN
Russia says it has submitted its bid for vast territories in the Arctic to the United Nations.
The Foreign Ministry said Tuesday that Russia is claiming 1.2 million square kilometers (over 463,000 square miles) of Artic sea shelf.
Russia, the U.S., Canada, Denmark and Norway have all been trying to assert jurisdiction over parts of the Arctic, which is believed to hold up to a quarter of the planet's undiscovered oil and gas.
Russia was the first to submit its claim in 2002, but the U.N. sent it back for lack of evidence. The new bid contains more data.
In 2007, Moscow staked a symbolic claim to the Arctic seabed by dropping a canister containing the Russian flag on the ocean floor from a small submarine at the North Pole.
