US Edition Russia faces embarrassment over its flag planting expedition to the North Pole after claims that state broadcasters borrowed scenes from the movie Titanic to "beef-up" footage.
Television company Rossiya sent images of mini submarines descending to the ocean floor around the world in its report about the mission.
But a 13-year-old boy from Finland spotted the scenes in the national daily newspaper Ilta-Sanomat, and realised that they resembled images on his Titanic DVD.
He told the newspaper: "I checked it with my DVD and there it was right there in the beginning of the movie: exactly the same image of the submersibles approaching the ship."
Titanic, made by James Cameron and starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet, opens with pictures of divers inspecting the 1912 shipwreck.
The news programme is accused of merging real footage with the movie shots under the caption "northern Arctic Ocean", according to the Guardian.
It reported that Rossiya had refused to comment on the footage but said its Vesti news programme had originally been filmed using scale models in a studio.
The company is one of two state-controlled channels that have been turned into propaganda tools under President Vladimir Putin.
The Kremlin has used Artur Chilingarov's controversial expedition, after which he declared the Arctic "forever Russian", to stir up national sentiment in support of Russia's claim to the land.
But his 14,000ft descent by submarine drew criticism from Canada and the United States who accused Russia of a crude attempt to grab the Arctic.
Canada's prime minister yesterday announced plans for an army training center and a deepwater port on the third day of an Arctic trip devised to assert sovereignty over the region's potentially vast energy resources.
Meanwhile the United States has launched an Arctic expedition of its own.
Scientists want to map the sea floor off Alaska, but deny that the US is actively joining the Arctic competition.