Nine vessels that were stuck in Arctic sea ice for a month have finally made it to the Kara Sea, with the help of icebreaker ships. The captain of the Vaigach, Mikhail Goncharenko, was praised for successfully bringing the ships to safety. One of the vessels, the Kumpula, was stranded north of the New Siberian Islands for over a week before sailing independently into the ice-free Barents Sea on December 7th. The ship is expected to arrive in the Norwegian port of Narvik on December 11th. The other vessels, including the Selenga and Vladimir Rusanov, have also reached their destinations. The difficult early winter conditions in the Arctic made the journey challenging.