Russia greets flag team heroes as the world condemns Arctic stunt Times Online:The explorers who planted the Russian flag beneath the North Pole were given a heroes’ welcome yesterday in defiance of the international condemnation of Moscow’s territorial claims.
Russia released the first pictures of the moment the tricolour was placed on the Arctic shelf at a depth of more than two and a half miles in a mission intended to advance the country’s claims over the region’s vast untapped mineral resources. It announced on Thursday that two of its submarines had successfully reached the bottom of the Arctic Ocean under the pole. But the symbolic planting of a rust-proof titanium Russian flag drew scornful responses from Western nations with Arctic ambitions.
