MURMANSK, September 15. /TASS/. A group of Russian Northern Fleet warships practised an amphibious Arctic landing exercise on Tuesday, the fleet press office told TASS.

The Northern Fleet's Georgy Pobedonosets and Kondopoga large amphibious assault ships reaching Russia’s New Siberian archipelago on Monday, landed marines on Kotelny Island on Tuesday. Arctic brigade units took part in an amphibious operation of this kind for the first time.

"The exercise in amphibious landing onto rough terrain started with the support of shipborne aircraft. Two Kamov Ka-27 [NATO reporting name: Helix] shipborne helicopters took off from the large antisubmarine ship Severomorsk to transport advance parties to the western shore of Kotelny Island," the press office said.

Then the Georgy Pobedonosets started to land amphibious troops. The ship arrived at the landing site and offloaded vehicles, equipment and personnel. The Kondopoga was the second to land marines on Kotelny Island.

More than 230 servicemen from the Arctic brigade and 30 pieces of wheeled and tracked vehicles, including articulated tracked amphibious snow and swamp-going vehicles with high cross-country ability and MT-LBV multipurpose tractors, were carried to Kotelny Island during the exercise.

Quad bikes recently fielded with the Arctic brigade will be tested in harsh conditions of the Arctic Ocean islands for the first time.

After fighting for amphibious landing and securing positions on the shore, the Arctic brigade’s units moved inland towards the base camp.

During the ships’ stay off the New Siberian archipelago, they will have to conduct all-arms forces’ exercise to protect the archipelago and the Russian Arctic coast, the press office said.