YALTA, October 3. /TASS/. Experts from a state research-and-development center are creating a monitoring system to watch over Russia's combined strategic command for the Arctic.

When implemented, the system will protect the northern and western military formations being set up to safeguard Russian interests in the Arctic. Monitoring will extend across the Arctic into the Novya Zemlya archipelago, Franz Josef Land, the Novosibirsk Islands and Wrangel Island.

"We have prepared a concept to monitor underwater, surface, air and space in the Arctic region,” Sergei Boyev, general director of Moscow Mints Radio-Technical Institute, said Friday. He also noted the new system will combine wide-ranging technologies addressing different objectives.

“The system will integrate all these devices," he said, adding that they will monitor a 200-mile zone at reduced costs. Constant coast patrolling will no longer be needed as radar equipment is planned to scan surface waves.

Russia's Arctic military command

The formation of the Arctic military command is part of Russia’s ongoing extensive program to build up military presence in the Arctic. Last March, President Vladimir Putin said that the armed forces’ training and development efforts should incorporate measures to increase the combat component of the Arctic group. The Defense Ministry has since made several steps along these lines.

Russia announced it was recreating its military base on the Novosibirsk Islands in the Laptev Sea. An airfield was opened on Kotelny, the largest island of the archipelago. Another military airport, Rogachyovo, commissioned on the southern island of the Novaya Zemlya Archipelago, is capable of accommodating fighter jets.

The construction of an airfield in Tiksi, Yakutia’s northernmost locality, inside the Arctic circle, will be completed in 2015. Three airfields - in the Alykel community (the Krasnoyarsk Territory), in Vorkuta (the Komi Republic), and in Anadyr, the administrative center of Chukotka, will be expanded.