"The personnel of a separate motorized rifle brigade's division of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) of the Northern Fleet's Arctic coastal forces has started to operate in polar latitudes," Capt. 1st Rank Vadim Serga said.
According to the military official, Takhion and Eleron-3 drones, tested in mid-May in the Arctic archipelago of Franz Josef Land, were launched into the skies over the northern Russian Murmansk Region.
Last week, a group of Russian military industry experts arrived in Russia's Far Eastern Chukotka Autonomous Area to prepare the Eastern Military District’s drones for monitoring missions in the Arctic.
Russia's revised military doctrine, signed by President Vladimir Putin in December 2014, for the first time named the protection of national interests in the Arctic among the main priorities for its armed forces during peacetime.
The Arctic shelf is believed to hold enormous deposits of oil and natural gas. Russia, alongside the United States, Canada, Norway and Denmark, has been laying claims to areas off the Arctic northern shore.
