Short answers, pulled from the story.
Russia's Arctic policy states four main goals: utilizing the region's natural resources, protecting its ecosystems, using Arctic seas as a transportation system in Russia's interests, and ensuring the Arctic remains a zone of peace and cooperation. The Russian Security Council has also called for increased investment in Arctic infrastructure and development of the Northern Sea Route.
The Arktika 2007 expedition, led by Artur Chilingarov in August 2007, was the first to reach the seabed at the North Pole. The expedition planted a Russian flag and collected rock, mud, water, and plant samples. Russia used these samples to support its 2001 claim that the Lomonosov Ridge is a geological extension of the Russian continental shelf, entitling Russia to that seabed under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.
Travel along the Northern Sea Route takes only one-third the distance required to travel between Europe and Asia via the Suez Canal, and without the risk of pirates. The route runs from the Barents Sea to the Bering Strait and is open for up to eight weeks a year, though it still requires Russian icebreaker support even when navigable.
The Arctic 30 were the crew members of the Greenpeace vessel MV Arctic Sunrise who were arrested in September 2013 after attempting to board Gazprom's Prirazlomnaya oil platform in the Pechora Sea. The Russian Coast Guard seized the ship and detained the 30 crew members, who came from 19 countries, for 48 hours in Murmansk. Russian authorities sought to charge them with piracy, which carries a maximum penalty of fifteen years imprisonment.
The first recorded voyage to the Russian Arctic was by the Novgorodian Uleb in 1032, who discovered the Kara Sea. Subsequent milestones include Semyon Dezhnyov and Fedot Alekseyev Popov discovering the Bering Strait in 1648, and the Great Northern Expedition of 1733-1743, led by Vitus Bering and Aleksei Chirikov, which produced 62 large maps and charts of the Arctic region.
Russia has built ten nuclear-powered civilian vessels in total, including nine icebreakers, and currently operates six nuclear icebreakers alongside 19 diesel polar icebreakers. The fleet includes the 50 Let Pobedy (50 Years of Victory), the largest nuclear icebreaker in the world. The first nuclear icebreaker, the Lenin, began operating on the Northern Sea Route in July 1960.