An environment protection unit has been formed within the Northern Fleet of the Russian Federation to clean up environmental damage in the Arctic, Arctic-Info news agency reports.

Commander of the Northern Fleet, Vladimir Korolyov, said the unit has all the necessary equipment, including two hydraulic scrap metal balers for compressing barrels that are to be brought onshore as scrap metal.

Military ecologists have collected some 8,000 barrels, 3,500 of which have already been compressed.

About 30,000 barrels are expected to be scrapped in the summer of 2015.