TOKYO -- Russia recently started building a shelter for submarines on the Kamchatka Peninsula in its remote Far East, fanning concerns it aims to use the Northern Sea Route, a shipping lane that connects Asia and Europe via the Arctic, for more than purely economic purposes.
The shelter, located near Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, the largest city in the Kamchatka Peninsula and a key base for the Russian Pacific Fleet, will be supply submarines with missiles, torpedoes and fuel, according to Russia's Izvestia daily newspaper, as well as hosting full-scale repair and maintenance work. State-of-the-art minesweepers will also use the site.
