MOSCOW, September 6 (Itar-Tass) - Russian Northern Fleet ships carrying personnel and equipment left the fleet’s main base of Severomorsk on Saturday for the eastern Arctic. The ships are carrying a naval group to the New Siberian Islands, where it will be permanently based.

In the convoy are the large warships Admiral Levchenko, Georgy Pobedonosets and Kondopoga, a tanker, a rescue tugboat and a vessel of the Baltic Fleet, the fleet’s spokesman Vadim Serga said.

The main aim of the trip is to transport personnel and equipment to the New Siberian Islands, where the Northern Fleet’s tactical group will be permanently based beginning this year, the fleet’s commander Vladimir Korolyov said.

The Navy’s aircraft will monitor the ice situation to ensure safety for the convoy under difficult Arctic conditions. Icebreakers of the Rosatom state corporation are planned to lead the group across some areas.

It is the third large-scale trip of Northern Fleet ships to the Arctic in recent years, Serga said.

In 2012, marines for the first time in the Russian Navy’s history parachuted onto an Arctic island, Kotelny. In 2013, a group of ships headed by the heavy nuclear-powered cruiser Pyotr Veliky delivered equipment to the New Siberian Island to restore operation of an air force commandant’s headquarters.