Novaya Zemlya region did not have time to have thick 1.5 meters sea ice.

May 2018 PIOMAS sea ice anomaly map .  in particular we look at Western Novaya Zemlya region

     Notice the gradual red darkening indicating sea ice anomaly 1.5 m thicker than mean next to Russian motherland.....

   NASA worldview February 9. March 9,  April 9, May 9 and June 9 2018 Western Novaya Zemlya viewed from the South:

   With very little sea ice at least till mid- February,  most of the area was covered by March 9 with first year very thin fresh sea ice,  this is observed by sea current and winds easily breaking thin sea ice up especially as seen in April.  Come June there was no evidence of multi year sea ice migrations,  it is just new sea ice.  It is conservative to estimate that this ice had only 3 months to accrete, which is definitely not possible to thicken so quickly beyond 150 cm,  consider sea water temperatures usually warmer there in Barents sea as well.  Not possible at least in my experience,  I estimate its thickness to be downwards of 80 cm given the lack of consolidation,  also given a significant period of warmer surface temperatures and especially the apparent thick snow cover which masked its broken nature especially in April.

      Red 1.5 meters North East NZ having spectacular water intermix

 May 2018 flow of ice for most of the month... 

     First of all,  there is  extensive wide open water NE of NZ ,  secondly the flow is spectacularly lazy. no very extensive ridging is possible amongst open water!

WDJune 10,2018