"We will meet with the members of the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf. There will be new presentations, comments. We hope that this time the subcommittee will provide us with their questions [regarding the Russian bid]," Donskoi said on the sidelines of the Arctic Days in Moscow forum held in the Russian capital through Friday.
He added that Russia's claim is substantiated in terms of geological research while its review could begin as early as the summer of 2017.
In 2015, Russia submitted a revised bid to the United Nations, seeking to enlarge its share of the Arctic continental shelf, to include the Lomonosov Ridge, the Mendeleev Ridge and other continental elevations.
Russia has previously made a claim to the shelf, which is rich with hydrocarbons, but its first application was rejected in 2002 due to a lack of geological evidence. Since then, Russia has conducted a number of Arctic expeditions involving seismological and geophysical research to establish the geological composition of the Mendeleev and Lomonosov underwater ridges as continuation of the Eurasian continent to extend the country's jurisdiction over some 1.2 million square kilometers (463,000 square miles) of the Arctic Ocean, reaching up to the North Pole.
