Soldiers from the Russian Northern Fleet's environmental clean-up platoon have compacted 16,800 metal drums and placed them inside 67 containers with a capacity of 20 metric tons each for subsequent removal from Kotelny Island, said the fleet's spokesman, Vadim Serga.

"Over 336 metric tons of scrap metal are ready to be removed from the island," Rossiya Segodnya reports, citing Serga.

Five more containers filled with empty drums will also sail to mainland Russia. The drums will be refilled with petroleum, fuel and lubricants and returned to the island.

The motor ship Yury Arshenevsky has already arrived at the island and delivered materials and equipment for building military installations in the archipelago. It will take 12 containers to the mainland.

Clean-up operations conducted on the island this past summer have reduced the number of 200-liter metal drums to 100,000.