Russia is breaking into the Arctic with new ship technology

Several years ago, if the Russian icebreaking fleet did not seem hopeless, the outlook was definitely bleak.

Veterans of the Soviet “ice power” ships, Lenin and Siberia, were effectively obsolete; three more nuclear-powered icebreakers were ready to be discarded; the unfinished successor – the nuclear-powered 50 Years of Victory – had been rusting on the water since 1993.

In 2007, it moved to an operational stage and shipbuilders also began working on a new order – the construction of two diesel-electric icebreakers, Moscow and St Petersburg.

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