Franz Josef Land air bases in the Arctic. A major new base, named the "Arctic Trefoil" for its three lobed structure, was constructed at Nagurskoye. It can maintain 150 soldiers for 18 months and has an area of 14,000 square meters. In 2017, Russian president Vladimir Putin visited the archipelago to protect Russia's interests in the Arctic. The archipelago constitutes the northernmost part of Russia's Arkhangelsk Oblast, located between 79°46′ and 81°52′ north and 44°52′ and 62°25′ east. It is situated north of Novaya Zemlya and east of the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard. Located within the Arctic Ocean, Franz Josef Land constitutes the
Novaya Zemlya avalanche that blocked two glacial streams and created a lake in length. Over its history as a nuclear test site, Novaya Zemlya hosted 224 nuclear detonations with a total explosive energy equivalent to 265 megatons of TNT. For comparison, all explosives used in World War II, including the detonations of two US nuclear bombs, amounted to only two megatons. In 1988–1989, "glasnost" helped make the Novaya Zemlya testing activities public knowledge, and in 1990 Greenpeace activists staged a protest at the site. The last nuclear test explosion was in 1990 (also the last for the entire Soviet Union and Russia).