RUSSIA'S QUEST to recapture its Soviet-era stature has taken a dramatic new twist with the dispatch of a Kremlin-backed Arctic expedition to the North Pole.

Its mission is one that has swelled Russian chests with pride: to stake a claim to a 460,000-square mile swath of the Arctic shelf believed to be rich in oil and gas.

Russia is already the world's largest country by territory but its political elite would like to see it get even bigger and its already fabulous energy reserves even richer.

In the next day or two a mini submarine will plant a Russian flag hewn from titanium 14,000ft beneath the North Pole, along with the country's coat of arms.

Although it will be a symbolic gesture and carries no legal weight, it is designed to send the West a clear message: Russia has shrugged off its post-cold war weakness and will be aggressively defending and pushing its national interests from now on.

If it goes smoothly, the flag planting, reminiscent of the kind of propaganda coup beloved by the Soviets, will feed a rising state-orchestrated sense of patriotism and national pride.

It will also be the beginning of what is likely to be a lengthy international struggle for the Arctic Ocean's riches, with Canada, Denmark, Norway, the United States and Russia all having competing interests in the hydrocarbon-stuffed area.

The Russians have not been shy about their ambitions: "We are going to be the first to put a flag there, a Russian flag," expedition leader Artur Chilingarov said, before setting off from the Russian port of Murmansk.

"The Arctic is ours and we should demonstrate our presence."

The tabloid newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda has been equally blunt about Russia's aims. It published a map of the North Pole that showed the 460,000-mile swath of territory Moscow is claiming beneath the white, blue and red Russian tricolour.

State-controlled TV has been having a field day tracking the "heroic" convoy's progress to the Pole.

Spearheaded by the nuclear-powered icebreaker Rossiya, the mission is being undertaken by around 100 Russian scientists/explorers on a research ship called the Academic Fyodorov.

The expedition faced a technical hitch - and temporary embarrassment - towards the end of last week when the Fyodorov's engines failed, but they have since been repaired and the mission is now back on course.

However, the voyage has evoked memories of the cold war, with the Russians angrily claiming a US spy plane is monitoring their progress. The state TV channel Vesti even published a photograph of what it claimed was the plane on its website.

Chilingarov, Russia's most famous living Arctic and Antarctic explorer, is already regarded as a hero.

In 1985, when the USSR still existed, he was made a Hero of the Soviet Union for his role in a mission that saw his vessel become trapped in sea ice.

A bearded bear of a man, he knows all about the geopolitical significance of such expeditions. And from the Kremlin's point of view he also comes with ideal political credentials.

The 68-year-old is an MP for the pro-Kremlin United Russian Party, a deputy speaker in the country's duma (parliament), and a Vladimir Putin loyalist.

CHILINGAROV'S mission - to conduct a carefully calibrated public relations exercise designed to reinforce Russia's Arctic claim - is a complex one.

At the centre of that claim is the Lomonosov Ridge, an underwater mountain range stretching for 1240 miles.

Russian scientists are seeking to prove the ridge is a geological extension of Russia itself and can therefore be claimed by Moscow under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.

Non-Russian scientists argue that Canada could theoretically make the same claim. But there is far more to the expedition than staking a territorial claim.

As Moscow counts down to a parliamentary election in December and a presidential ballot next March, when Putin is due to step down, Russia's voters are being urged to feel good about themselves.

With oil prices continuing to ride high, Moscow can afford to plough money into feeding that growing sense of national self-worth.

In the Kremlin's eyes this latest mission, which will reportedly cost Russia £40 million, will in that sense be money well spent.