The mishap was not caused by a stray iceberg, though. The boat was sunk by an angry walrus who was trying to protect her cubs.

Walruses are notorious for their quick temper and aggression, and this is far from the first boat a walrus has sunk. Early European explorers documented a number of walrus attacks in early exploration of the Arctic, and the native Inuit called the red walrus saanniartoq, “the one who turns against one”.

The attacks have happened on land and at sea, and while most walrus attacks occur in the water, there are accounts of a walrus breaking through the ice to attack hunters walking on it. There was even one account of a walrus launching itself from the water to chase hunters on the ice. In the 1960’s, a Greenland hunter was pulling his kayak and the seal he had caught out of the sea when a walrus emerged, stabbed him with a tusk and escaped with the seal. Thankfully, the walrus didn’t kill the hunter, only knocking him unconscious.

There were no injuries in the recent Russian incident, but walrus attacks have led to fatalities in the past. One of the earliest accounts was found in a 1918 Norwegian memoir, which detailed at attack in Spitzbergen where walruses capsized a boat, killing all aboard.

“Serious troubles were avoided thanks to the clear and well-coordinated actions of the Northern Fleet servicemen, who were able to take the boat away from the animals without harming them. The boat sank, but a tragedy was avoided thanks to the prompt action by the squad leader. All landing participants safely reached the shore,” the Russian Ministry of Defence said in a statement about the attack.

The expedition was retracing the steps of the early polar explorers who first tried to map out the desolate and freezing archipelago, mapping historical expeditions such as those of Austro-Hungarian military officer Julius von Payer in 1874, and American explorer Walter Wellman in 1898. The joint mission is also investigating the flora and fauna of the region, as well as making glaciological observations.

Inhabited only by military personnel, Franz Josef Land sits just 900km south of the North Pole. Most of the archipelago is underneath glaciers and from October to February it experiences a 128-day-long polar night. Temperatures can reach as low as -40C during the deepest parts of winter.

This all makes it hard to argue with the Russian Ministry of Defence’s statement that “the incident is another confirmation that no one is expecting humans in the Arctic”.