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Russian green men in the Arctic

Some of these men are currently cleaning up tons of scrap metal at the far Arctic Island of Kotelny

The Northern Fleet has established a special unit which is cleaning up the huge amounts of scrap metal left rusting along Russia’s Arctic coast.

Location

Only in the course of July, at least 50 tons of rubble has been taken care of at the Kotelny Island, a Navy spokesman says to Tass.ru.

The clean-up personnel, all of them belonging to Northern Fleet, has got two hydraulic compressors which reportedly has the capacity to flatten as many as 30,000 metal barrels in the course of the summer period. 

It is believed to be at least 110,000 abandoned barrels only at the Kotelny.

The cleanup operations come as the Northern Fleet is strengthening its presence along the Russian Arctic coast. The Island of Kotelny, a part of the New Siberian Islands, is a key spot for the Navy. As previously reported, Northern Fleet units in 2013 moved in to restore the local air field of Temp and other base facilities abandoned in the late Soviet period.

In the period 2012-2014, a Russian federal programme allocated $70 million for cleanup of the metal scrap. However, the problems still persists.