Image caption Mr Putin (left) is seen here with with the Commander of the Russian Military Air and Space Defence Forces, Alexander Golovko 
 
 Russian President Vladimir Putin has told his military leadership they should build up their forces in the Arctic as a priority. 
 
 Commending the recent restoration of an airfield in the region, he said Russia needed to use every means to protect its national interests in the region. 
 
 He was speaking after Canada announced plans to claim the continental shelf under the North Pole. 
 
 Russia and Denmark also lay claim to parts of the resource-rich shelf. 
 
 Mr Putin has spoken about the need to increase Russia's military capacity in the Arctic before but this was one of his most direct orders yet, the BBC's Daniel Sandford reports from Moscow. 
 
 It is a sign of the growing manoeuvring by the Arctic nations for the potentially valuable resources beneath the northern seas, our correspondent says. 
 
 The Arctic is estimated to have 30% of the world's undiscovered gas and 15% of the undiscovered oil. Climate change and advances in drilling technology mean these reserves are becoming easier and cheaper to exploit. 
 
 New air bases 
 
 At a big meeting of the country's top military officers on Tuesday, President Putin asked them to pay "particular attention to the deployment of infrastructure and military units in the Arctic". 
 
 He thanked the defence staff for re-opening this summer an old Soviet airbase abandoned 20 years ago on the Novosibirsk Islands in the high Arctic. 
 
 Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption The North Polar region is home to not only polar bears but vast untapped resources under the ice 
 
 More air bases would follow, he said, in Tiksi and Severomorsk. 
 
 "Next year, we have to complete the formation of new large units and military divisions [in the Arctic]," Mr Putin added. 
 
 In August 2007, Russian explorers travelling in mini-submarines planted their country's flag on the seabed 4,200m (14,000ft) below the North Pole to further Moscow's claims to the Arctic. 
 
 The detention of a Greenpeace ship and its crew after they protested at a Russian Arctic oil platform in September highlighted Moscow's sensitivity to criticism of its prospecting in the region. 
 
 On Monday, Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird said his country intended to extend its seabed claims in the Arctic to include the North Pole. 
 
 He said the Conservative government had asked scientists to work on a future submission to the UN claiming that the outer limits of its continental shelf include the Pole. 
 
 'Political' claim 
 
 Under international law, no country has sovereignty over the North Pole, one of the remotest and harshest parts of the planet. 
 
 Canada applied to extend its seabed claims in the Atlantic last week, including some preliminary Arctic claims. 
 
 Michael Byers, an expert on the Arctic and international law at the University of British Columbia, suggested Canada's new claim had as much to do with domestic politics as national interest. 
 
 "We're talking about the centre of a large, inhospitable ocean that is in total darkness for three months each year, thousands of miles from any port," he told the Associated Press. 
 
 "The water in the North Pole is 12,000 ft [3,650m] deep and will always be covered by sea ice in the winter. It's not a place where anyone is going to be drilling for oil and gas. So it's not about economic stakes, it's about domestic politics." ||||| Russia will create forces in the Arctic in 2014 to ensure military security and protect the country’s national interests in the region, which President Vladimir Putin has named among the government’s top priorities. 
 
 Russia is returning to the Arctic and “intensifying the development of this promising region” so it needs to “have all the levers for the protection of its security and national interests,” Putin said on Tuesday at an expanded meeting of the Defense Ministry Board. 
 
 He ordered the ministry to complete the formation of new military units and infrastructure in the Arctic next year. 
 
 "I would like you to devote special attention to deploying infrastructure and military units in the Arctic," the president said in televised remarks. 
 
 Russia is reinstating its military base in the Novosibirsk Archipelago (New Siberian Islands), which had been abandoned by the military in 1993, after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The islands “have key meaning for the control of the situation in the entire Arctic region,” Putin told the top military brass. 
 
 This year, Russia has also started restoring its Arctic airfields including one called “Temp” on Kotelny Island near the city of Norilsk. It is also overhauling urban facilities in Tiksi, Naryan-Mar, and Anadyr. 
 
 The country is set to continue the revival of other Russian northern airfields as well as docks on the New Siberian Islands and the Franz Josef Land archipelago, Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu said, speaking at Tuesday’s meeting. 
 
 “There are plans to create a group of troops and forces to ensure military security and protection of the Russian Federation's national interests in the Arctic in 2014,” Shoigu confirmed. 
 
 Additionally, Russian Senator and well-known polar explorer, Artur Chilingarov, suggested reviving the Academy of Sciences’ Polar Commission – a research institution which existed until 1936. 
 
 Back in September, Russia announced it was resuming its permanent Arctic military presence. In a symbolic move, it sent 10 warships and nuclear-powered icebreakers along the Northern Sea Route. This is a shipping lane between the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans, which runs from the Russian northern port city of Murmansk, along Siberia and the Far East. 
 
 In recent years, as the race for the Arctic intensified, Russia has repeatedly reiterated that it is set to retain its position in the region for both security and economic reasons, as well as to preserve its national integrity. 
 
 However, other Arctic nations are not going to give up either in their intention of grabbing a share of the region, believed to be rich in oil, natural gas, and deposits of gold and platinum. According to a US Geological Survey, about 90 billion barrels of oil and 1,670 trillion cubic feet of natural gas are there, making up about 10 percent of the world's petroleum resources. The dominant portion of these resources is hidden beneath ice that is shared between five nations bordering the Arctic: Canada, Denmark, Norway, the Russia and the US – who have been in a bitter dispute over how to divide up the ‘pie’. 
 
 According to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, an economic zone belonging to a state is limited to 200 nautical miles from the coastline. That area can only be extended if a country provides evidence that the continental shelf is a geological extension of its territory. 
 
 Canada confirmed on Monday that it is preparing to include the North Pole as part of its Arctic Ocean seabed claim in the multi-country push to prove jurisdiction over further territory in the area. 
 
 Since 2007, Russia has organized several expeditions to prove that an underwater Arctic mountain range, the Lomonosov Ridge, is part of its own landmass. It says the ridge is a continuation of the Siberian continental platform and it is not isolated from the Russian plateau. 
 
 US President Barack Obama in May unveiled a strategy for the Arctic, asserting that nations must protect the region's fragile environment and keep it free from conflict. The plan also made it clear the US does not want to be left behind as the other countries eye natural resources and exploit potential new sea routes.
– Canada is planning to claim the North Pole as part of its territory, and Russia has something to say about that: Oh, heck no. President Vladimir Putin has ordered the Russian military to boost its presence in the Arctic, and though he's discussed the idea before, the BBC calls this "one of his most direct orders yet." The Arctic has vast resources of gas and oil, and Putin says Russia must safeguard its interests there. He gave the directive at a meeting of top military officers yesterday, and also thanked them for re-opening an abandoned Arctic airbase this summer. He promised more airbases to come, saying, "Next year, we have to complete the formation of new large units and military divisions [in the Arctic]." In addition to other airfields Russia is restoring, one Russian senator and polar explorer wants to revive a polar research institution that shut down in 1936, RT.com reports.