ST. PETERSBURG, August 20 (RIA Novosti) - Russia's new drifting research station in the Arctic will begin working in late September, the press spokesman of the Artic and Antarctic Research Institute said Monday.

The North Pole 35 station being set up with the help of the Akademik Fedorov research vessel and the nuclear icebreaker Rossiya, which brought mini-submarines to the pole for the first ever dive to the seabed earlier in August, will conduct research in the area for one year and replace the previous station.

Sergei Balyasnikov said about 20 Russian and German scientists will conduct geological and ornithological research on an ice floe in the East Siberian Sea located between the Arctic Cape in the north and Siberia's coast in the south.

In early August, Russian researchers descended 4,200 meters (14,000 feet) below the Pole in two submersibles to gather scientific evidence to bolster the country's claim to a vast swathe of extra Arctic territory and planted a titanium Russian flag on the seafloor. The mission attracted criticism from rival Arctic nations.

Under international law, the five Arctic Circle countries - the U.S., Canada, Denmark, Norway and Russia - each have a 322-kilometer (200-mile) economic zone in the Arctic Ocean at the moment.