Arctic Ocean relate to the radioactive contamination of the Arctic Ocean from, for example, Russian radioactive waste dump sites in the Kara Sea and Cold War nuclear test sites such as Novaya Zemlya. In addition, Shell planned to drill exploratory wells in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas during the summer of 2012, which environmental groups filed a lawsuit about in an attempt to protect native communities, endangered wildlife, and the Arctic Ocean in the event of a major oil spill. On 16 July 2015, five nations (United States of America, Russia, Canada, Norway, Denmark/Greenland) signed a declaration committing to keep their fishing
Severnaya Zemlya map drawn by the expedition's cartographers showed Severnaya Zemlya to be divided into four main islands. Geographic features of the territory were named after communist organisations, events, and personalities. About Severnaya Zemlya Ushakov wrote: The "Graf Zeppelin" flew over the area during its polar flight of July 1931 and took some cartographic and meteorological data; Hugo Eckener tried to take pictures of the yet unsurveyed western coast, but it was obscured by fog and clouds. Even though German communists had endured great suffering under the Third Reich, following the anti-German sentiment caused by the 1941–1945 Great Patriotic War in the