Russia has boasted it will have the world’s most powerful icebreaker vessel by the end of the decade but the project has been hit by delays exacerbated by Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, it has been reported.
Russia’s first deputy prime minister, Denis Manturov, said that the “one of a kind” vessel Rossiya, intended for year-round navigation along the Northern Sea Route, one of several routes in the Arctic, would be built by “approximately by 2030,” Russian state news agency RIA Novosti reported Monday.
But this is three years later than the original deadline of December 2027 as the vessel’s construction faces cost overruns and delays that follow damage to a Ukrainian site, which was supposed to supply some of the components.
Steel cutting for the Rossiya began at the Zvezda shipyard near the far eastern city of Vladivostok in July 2020, but Russian business newspaper Kommersant reported that by March 2023, the construction of its hull had only progressed by 5 percent, or one third of what had been planned by that time.
This image from September 11, 2023, shows the Zvezda Shipbuilding Complex, outside of Vladivostok, Russia. The shipyard is the site for the construction of the icebreaker vessel Rossiya, which has reportedly faced significant delays. Getty Images
Large steel castings such as rudder horns and propeller shaft brackets had been originally ordered from the Ukrainian company Energomashspetsstal, the outlet reported.
But the production facility’s location in the Donetsk city of Kramatorsk, on the front line of Russia’s invasion, has added to the ship’s problems after it was damaged in 2022 by missiles fired by Russian forces targeting an ammunition depot.
This has forced a move to a domestic supplier that cannot deliver the components before August 2025. The original price tag of 128 billion rubles ($1.4 billion) could increase by between 40 and 60 percent, Kommersant reported.
Known as a Leader-class vessel and part of Moscow’s Project 10510 to construct a series of nuclear-powered icebreakers, the Rossiya will be equipped with two RITM-400-type nuclear reactors and have a total capacity of 120 MW, which is twice the power of the currently most powerful icebreakers.
Meeting with Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, Manturov said on Monday that three nuclear-powered ships Arktika, Sibir and Ural were already operating in the Arctic Ocean and that “we plan to commission the next icebreaker, Yakutia, at the end of this year.”
“Three more should replenish the nuclear fleet between 2026 and 2030,” he added.
At more than 600 feet long and with the ability to crush through over 12 feet of ice, the Rossiya is central to Putin’s plans for Northern Sea Route. The Russian president wants at least 130 million tons of goods to be transported yearly via the Arctic route by 2035.
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