Russian rumors if you are interested:

There are a lot of people died in the day of second attempt to move Ark of Gabriel in Mecca at Sep 24 2015, their deaths was officially written off to the jam among crowd of palmers. Some casualities happened also at Sep 11 2015 when Ark was found.

When Saudis got they need some theological and scientific help with artifact, they connected with Russian Orthodox Church.

Russians was selected because it is one of biblical artifacts that was never touched by Rome, Jews are excluded by default, so there was not so much choice of keepers of ancient Bible Covenant knowledge who didn't participate in destroying or stealing religious things.

Military reconnaissance and research vessel arrived to Jiddah port and calmed down by Orthodox priests artifact was transferred to the ship. Then ship suddenly took the course to Antarctica with priests on board. Aslo, three military satellites, was launched at the same time (Kosmos-2507, 2508 and 2509, from the Arrow/Spring series, officially p2p communication satellites, but presumably with reconnaissance abilities in radio frequencies).

Ship had strange cargo on board on departure from Russia - capsules with "saint Russian soils", officially they had to be placed in the places of military glory of Russian sailors around the globe. Also officially trip to Antarctica was described as a "recreation voyage" for ships crew. Capsules with saint soil was all delivered to Antarctica without any ceremonies in places around the world. Bringing Russian soil to the places of death of Russians is a relatively popular tradition, but in that case there was too many soil even if it would have been delivered as promised.

Considering that at the time Saudis and Russia was not best friends and Saudi Muslims and Russian Orthodoxes are not best friends, and of course such joint trips of Muslims and Orthodox Christians on military ships to Antarctica is not some old tradition I think there is something interesting and important happened and may be continue to happen, as Iran being one of the most developed Islamic countries, they are also Shia Muslims unlike Sunni Saudis and the relations between Iran and Russia and Saudi Arabia rised to a new level, may be Iranians was also invited to join that project. Interesting, that unlike Sunni, Shia Muslims are obliged to constantly gather knowledge about the God's creation, i.e. our world in all senses. So they could have some knowledge useful in that joint affair.