Imagery from Russian Cosmos series near-polar orbiting satellites has recently become more widely available. We have obtained KATE-200 photographic imagery of ice caps in the European high Arctic archipelagos of Franz Josef Land and Svalbard, and from the Greenland Ice Sheet. This visible-band imagery is of high spatial resolution (nominal 15 m) and each image covers a large ground segment (approximately 59 000km2). KATE-200 products are first generation film positives, first generation film negatives, and prints. No calibration standards or grey scales are provided. A number of ice-surface topographic features can be extracted from these high resolution photographic products. Examples include flow directions in the Greenland Ice Sheet and drainage-basin ice divides on Svalbard ice caps. The large area covered by each KATE-200 image, almost twice that of a Landsat scene, and over 15 times that of SPOT, is an advantage when monitoring the occurrence of glacier surges. The 15 m resolution clearly distinguishes heavy crevassing which affects the ice surface during surging. The combination of large format (a nominal 243 km × 243 km, but in fact up to at least 333 km × 333 km in some launches) and high spatial resolution also makes KATE-200 imagery very suitable for monitoring changing snowline position at both intra- and inter-annual timescales. The occurrence and size-frequency distribution of icebergs can also be measured, and bergs up to 2·3 km in length have been observed in Russian Franz Josef Land.