MOSCOW, April 23. /ITAR-TASS/. Developing Russia’s Arctic zone and maintaining its security is becoming one of the highest priorities of the state policy for years to come. Russian President Vladimir Putin held a meeting of the Security Council on Tuesday to instruct the government to launch a program entitled Socio-Economic Development of the Arctic Zone of Russia during the Period Extending till 2020 and to set up a unified centre to coordinate Arctic policies.
“The Arctic has been and still a domain of Russia’s special interests. “Here one finds a practically all aspects of national security — military-political, economic, technological, ecological and natural resources-related,” Putin said.