VLADIVOSTOK, Russia, May 30 (Xinhua) -- Russia is starting an exploratory expedition to Matua, a volcanic island located near the center of the Kuril Islands chain, a Russian military official said Tuesday.
Russia's Eastern Military District dispatched a fleet comprising an Admiral Nevelskoy landing ship, a Kil-168 rescue ship, and a rescue tug SB-522. The fleet has already left Vladivostok and is heading to the Sakhalin port of Korsakov, said Vladimir Matveev, a spokesman of the military district.
A local group of the Russian Geographical Society will join the military personnel in Korsakov and set off to Matua.
The 56-island Kuril chain has been a sore point in Russia-Japan relations for decades. Japan claims the four southernmost islands of the chain and calls them the Northern Territories.
There are around 100 people and over 30 units of equipment aboard the expedition vessels, said Matveev.
"This year the scientific expedition has significantly expanded. Several groups of hydrogeologists, volcanologists, hydrobiologists, soil scientists, and archaeologists from Vladivostok, Moscow, Kamchatka, and Sakhalin will be working here together," said the spokesman.
Since 2016, Russia's Defense Ministry, the Pacific Fleet of the Russian navy and the Russian Geographical Society have been "carrying out comprehensive work on studying the historical, cultural and natural heritage of the Matua island in the Kuril chain," the spokesman added.
The Russian military and the Russian Geographical Society conducted a joint expedition to the Matua Island in May 2016 to study the possibility of basing Pacific Fleet forces there, according to reports by Russian media.
