MURMANSK, December 25. /TASS/. The Northern Sea Route development is closely linked to the development of Arctic cities along it, said Deputy Chief of Staff of the Presidential Executive Office Maxim Oreshkin during a working trip to the Murmansk Region, adding the country may have a separate national project - the Northern Sea Route and the Arctic.

"I largely agree that the tasks to develop the Northern Sea Route (NSR) and the Arctic cities are very closely related tasks, and, of course, they should be addressed in a complex. President Vladimir Putin will hold a meeting on the Northern Sea Route development, where the topic of Arctic cities will be on the agenda, and obviously we expect a decision to have a separate national project. We will report to the president, including on my trip," he said during a meeting with the Murmansk Region's Governor Andrey Chibis.

The Murmansk Region has many new projects, including the implementation of master plans to develop the Arctic backbone cities, the renovation of military garrisons and limited-access towns, as well as a project of a world-class campus, supported by the president.

In December, the Murmansk Region's Governor Andrey Chibis, managing the State Council commission on the Northern Sea Route and the Arctic, initiated a separate national project - the Northern Sea Route and the Arctic - for integrated development of the transport direction and the macroregion, since all projects are long-term and require large investments, including in infrastructures.

The Northern Sea Route is a shipping route in the Russian Arctic that runs along Russia's northern shores of the Arctic Ocean seas (the Barents, Kara, Laptev, East Siberian, Chukchi and Bering Seas). It connects the Russian Federation's European and Far Eastern ports, as well as mouths of navigable Siberian rivers, into a single transport system. NSR's length from the Kara Gate Strait to the Providence Bay is 5,600 km.