A World War Two fighter plane with the pilot’s remains still in the cockpit has been uncovered in a remote region of Russia.

The incredible find was made at the bottom of an unnamed 15-metre- (49-ft-) deep lake in Russia’s north-western Murmansk Oblast in July.

Murmansk Oblast lies almost completely north of the Arctic Circle, is sparsely populated, and is known for its harsh and unstable climate.

The find was made by the Northern Fleet, the fleet of the Russian Navy in the Arctic tasked with military operations and defence in northern Russia’s Arctic seas.

According to the fleet, the remains of 50 Soviet citizens shot dead by the Wehrmacht in 1941 lie beneath the lake’s waters.

The fleet used an autonomous underwater vehicle to find the fighter plane, which was partially fragmented.

The Russian authorities were able to ascertain the identity of the deceased pilot from archival records. He was named as Lieutenant Mikhail Alexandrovich Golunov, born in 1910.

It is believed he met his end during a reconnaissance mission of enemy defence units and terrain on 25th October 1941.

At the time, enemy forces had been advancing on Murmansk as part of Operation Barbarossa – the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany and some of its Axis allies, which began in June of the same year.

The operation was launched by Nazi Germany with the goal of conquering the western Soviet Union in order to repopulate it with Germans.

The operation ended in an Axis failure in December 1941 with a heavy toll on the victors, with Soviet military casualties reaching almost five million.

During the operation, Nazi German forces found themselves unable to invade the city of Murmansk, which the Soviets successfully defended.

Soviet forces also lost 21,200 aircraft in the German invasion, including the recently-found I-153-M62 Soviet biplane fighter, which was brought to the lake’s surface.

Other items recovered included the pilot’s personal TT pistol – an out-of-production Soviet semi-automatic pistol developed in the early 1930s.

Experts will now ascertain how Lt Golunov met his end. It is currently unclear whether he was shot down or simply crashed.

The authorities are currently working to ascertain if he has any living relatives, who, if found, will be asked if they want his remains to be buried in his hometown or in the Valley of Glory memorial cemetery 75 kilometres (47 mi) from the city of Murmansk.