Russian President Vladimir Putin began work on a new nuclear icebreaker on Friday, Agerpres reports. The event took place at a shipyard on the Baltic Sea in St. Petersburg, and the ship will be called Leningrad – that was the name of the city in Soviet times.
The nuclear icebreaker, built by the Rosatom company, will be over 170 meters long and will be able to deal with a layer of ice up to three meters thick.
“He will have to work on the Northern Sea Route, participate in the most important exploration and research programs in the Arctic and ensure the transportation of goods,” Putin said during a closed-door speech at the construction site.
He added that the name Leningrad is a “new tribute” to the courage of its residents in the face of the German blockade during World War II. Tomorrow, St. Petersburg will celebrate the 80th anniversary of the end of the blockade.
Why these icebreakers are indispensable for Russia
The deployment of the vessel will bolster Moscow’s dominance in the Arctic region, where Russia faces the ambitions of other powers, especially China, and those of Western rivals, including the United States.
Russia is the only country in the world that has a fleet of nuclear icebreakers; Three more ships of this type have been launched in recent years, and one more, over 200 meters long, will be available in 2027.
Since 2022, when it invaded Ukraine and came under the sanctions of Western powers, Russia was forced to reorient its hydrocarbon supplies to Asia, since the European market for these raw materials was practically closed to it. Therefore, icebreakers cannot be dispensed with in order to open the way for oil tankers and gas transport vessels that deliver products, especially from Siberia.
The so-called “Northern Sea Route” between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans is more easily navigable in the face of melting ice due to climate change. Rosatom CEO Oleksiy Likhachev said on Friday that in 2023, a “record” volume of 36 million tons of cargo was delivered via this route.
Meanwhile, Putin (this time powdered and without a headdress in the cold) visited the church of St. Petersburg Shipyard. He praised the crew for building a new nuclear-powered icebreaker named Leningrad, then enthusiastically announced that a new one would be built next year, named Stalingrad. pic.twitter.com/MDpNwgoXe1
— Belsat in English (@Belsat_Eng) January 26, 2024
Putin broke the ice on the Northern trade route, opened a critically important nuclear ship
The Leningrad icebreaker, which will be the fifth in the Moscow series, was opened by the president in St. Petersburg in preparation for the anniversary of the end of the Nazi blockade during World War II.… pic.twitter.com/0rgLpmp3rd
— RT_India (@RT_India_news) January 26, 2024
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Source: Hot News
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