Perhaps it's a sign of the times, but when I read, "Experts assure that there will be no penetration of air from the atmosphere in the relict lake and there is no threat to its ecology," I feel like it's guaranteed that we'll find a way to do exactly that.
I do hope their promises of not contaminating the ecology will hold up in those undoubtedly very harsh conditions.
Would be a shame to waste all those years of drilling by introducing foreign 'samples' into the mix.
Along those lines, is there more detailed information available on this "new technology" that is supposed to prevent contamination? Wikipedia says that the Russian bore hole was filled with freon and aviation fuel to prevent freezing...
This is very exciting, and will probably produce some extremophile (bacterial?) lifeforms which have been hidden for ages, and probably live off volcanic heat and gases.
Are the Russians getting too impatient for cryobot and hydrobot?