MURMANSK, July 23. /TASS/. The Northern Fleet jointly with the Russian Geographic Society (RGO) formed teams for a complex expedition to Arctic islands of Novaya Zemlya, to Taimyr and Chukotka, the Fleet’s press service said.

"A group from the Russian Geographic Society has come aboard the Ilya Muromets icebreaker," the press service said. "The group will soon participate in the Northern Fleet’s complex expedition to the Arctic. Thus, we have finalized formation of expedition teams."

According to the press service, the expedition’s two teams will go to Novaya Zemlya’s Severny Island and to continental shores of northern seas, including on the Taimyr Peninsula and Chukotka (the Chukchi Peninsula).

Complex studies of Arctic archipelagoes began in 2018 at the initiative of the Navy’s Commander-in-Chief Admiral Nikolai Yevmenov, the then Commander of the Northern Fleet. The initiative was supported by Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and by the Russian Geographic Society. The first expedition went to the Novaya Zemlya Archipelago, and the second, in 2019, - to the Franz Josef Land Archipelago.