MOSCOW, October 11. /TASS/. Russia’s military presence in the Arctic will not add to the pollution sources in the region, Deputy Defence Minister General Dmitry Bulgakov told reporters on Saturday.
“We have observed all existing international standards and legal norms regulating ecology security in the region,” he said.
Russia will also organise a regional ecology centre of the North Fleet in the Arctic, he said.
The centre will conduct “ecology monitoring and control compliance with the Russian and international ecology legislations both in the places where the Fleet is located and in the Arctic zone, where the military are located,” he said.
All the military will be instructed in ecology security and legal requirements, the general said.
Russia’s Defence Ministry has worked out a road-map on ecology security in the Arctic.
“Now, our specialists are analysing the realistic ecology situation in the locations of the military in the Arctic, including the territories, where the military were located in the times of the USSR,” he said. “We plan to remove within several next years the old and destroyed buildings, to restore the territory - this means we shall remove the debris, basements and metal parts and so forth.”
“We shall utilise the waste by both taking it to the mainland, or by use of special devices right on the spot,” the deputy defence minister said.
In 2014, military of the Eastern Military District have removed waste from Wrangel Island and from the area of the Cape of Otto Schmidt. They brought to the mainland for further utilisation about ten tonnes of waste.