In 2001 Russia made a claim to the land under the North Pole and to any mineral deposits there. On October 16, 2007 two mini-subs descended 2.5 miles to the bottom, where one symbolically dropped a titanium capsule containing a Russian flag. Russia issued a set of stamp marking the expedition to plany a Russian flag on the sea bed under the North Pole.

     The Russian acknlowledge that planting the flag was a purely symbolic act. "It means nothing" from a legal standpoint, Viktor Posyolov, deputy director of Russia's Institute of World Ocean Geology and Mineral Resources, told the Associated Press several days before the dive.

     One stamp shows a mini-sub. The other has a map of the Arctic with the Russian flag on the North Pole. The non-postal tab shows the research ship, Akademik Fedorov.