Geography of Franz Josef Land per year). Though most of the land is covered by glacial ice, it does have outcrops covered with moss. The northeastern part of the archipelago is locked in pack ice most of the year round; however the ice sometimes retreats north past the islands in summer (September). Bibliography Geography of Franz Josef Land The Geography of Franz Josef Land refers to an island group belonging to Arkhangelsk Oblast of Russia. It is situated in the Barents Sea of the Arctic, north of Novaya Zemlya and east of Svalbard. At latitudes between 80.0° and 81.9° north, it is the most northerly
12th Chief Directorate Another task of the 12th GU MO is to prevent so-called "nuclear terrorism," but this is a relatively modern task, which did not exist formerly. Besides these nuclear arsenal bases, the 12th Chief Directorate maintains several nuclear weapons research institutes in Moscow and in Sergiev Posad, near Moscow, with their subsidiaries located at nuclear testing grounds in Semipalatinsk-21 and on Novaya Zemlya Archipelago, and in several other cities (Saint Petersburg, for example). It also maintains a separate research institute tasked with developing nuclear explosions detection technology. Another function of the 12th GU MO is to serve as a link between