The Clean Arctic project, aimed at removing the accumulated Soviet-era waste from Russia's Arctic Zone, will likely be extended to Spitsbergen in the spring of 2023. This was reported to TASS on Thursday by Ruslan Gubaidullin, Chairman of the Board of the ANCO Clean Arctic.

"We can go there (to Spitsbergen — TASS) starting May," he said, noting that foreign volunteers would be able to join the project.

Aleksey Chekunkov, the Minister for the Development of the Russian Far East and Arctic, previously said that tourists, not coal, were Spitsbergen's future and that the government needed to invest in that area. Russia has been operating on Spitsbergen for over 90 years. In 1931, it founded Arktikugol Trust, which produces 120,000 tonnes of coal annually. In 2022, the Russian government decided to transfer the trust under the management of the Ministry for the Development of the Russian Far East and Arctic.

Clean Arctic is a project to clean up the Arctic territory. It has become a platform that unites public and volunteer organisations, scientists, regional heads and businesses. The project's partners include Norilsk Nickel, Rosatom, PhosAgro and Russian Railways.