The Russian Federation has filed an application to expand the boundaries of the Russian continental shelf in the Arctic to the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf. The application takes into account the commission’s recommendations.

The Russian application covers an underwater space covering an area of about 1.2 million sq km at a distance of over 350 nautical miles from the coast. To justify Russia’s bid for expansion, Russian experts used extensive scientific data collected during many years of Arctic research. The submission of the application to the commission is a major step towards registering Russia’s rights to the Arctic shelf in accordance with the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.

In line with the commission’s procedural rules and practice, Russia’s application should be reviewed out of turn, as a priority, given the fact that we already applied for this in 2002. In this context we hope the commission will start discussing our application in the autumn of 2015.

August 4, 2015