The Nikolay Zubov is now being completed afloat at the Admiralty Shipyards in Saint Petersburg, where it was laid down in November 2019. Its launch took place on December 25. It is the first twin of the Ivan Papanin, whose assembly began in April 2017 and which was launched in October 2019. This building, which began its tests in spring 2024, should be launched service this summer.
Developed as part of the Russian Navy’s Project 23550, the Ivan Papanin and the Nikolay Zubov, ordered in 2016 from the Admiralty Shipyards, measure 114 meters long and 18 meters wide and will have a displacement of 8,500 tonnes at full capacity. charge. Featuring a hull design similar to that of a civilian icebreaker, with a bow designed to break ice and a very strong sampling of steel plates, they will be able to navigate in an ice floe thickness of up to 1.7 meter. They meet the ARC7 standard, identical to that of ice-breaking LNG carriers built to export liquefied natural gas (LNG) produced in the Yamal peninsula, in Siberia. Equipped with diesel electric propulsion, with two main engines of 6300 kW each and four groups with a unit power of 3500 kW, they are equipped with two propellers on shaft lines and two bow thrusters. Their maximum speed, in open waters, will be 18 knots for an autonomy announced at 10,000 nautical miles at 10 knots.
Armed by a crew of 60 sailors, with the capacity to accommodate 50 additional personnel, they will be, in terms of military capabilities, the most powerful icebreakers in the world. Modestly called “patrol vessels”, they are in reality small frigates, whose armament will include a 76 mm turret, two 30 mm multi-tube systems and launchers for 8 Kalibr cruise and anti-ship missiles with a range that can exceed 600 km. They will also be able to take on board a Ka-27 helicopter. The Kalibr missiles, in a version specially designed for polar environments, will be integrated into containerized modules located at the rear. This opens the way to the possibility of embarking other modular capabilities on these ships, such as towed sonar, torpedoes or other types of missiles.
Two units adopting the same design have been ordered for the coast guard component of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB). These are the future Purga and Dzerzhinsky, which saw their construction begin in July 2020 and December 2023 respectively at the Vyborg shipyards, north of Saint Petersburg.
Russia’s upcoming commissioning of heavily armed icebreakers demonstrates Moscow’s desire to defend its interests in the Far North, but also marks a worrying militarization of the polar zones. These already are, moreover, with the bases operated by different riparian countries, as well as the submarines which have been plying the waters of the Arctic for decades. The construction of these missile icebreakers, which have no equivalent in other navies, however, constitutes a new step, which fuels Western concerns, particularly in the United States. The development of Russian military capabilities in the Arctic is also one of the reasons for the increasingly pronounced American interest in Greenland, which is also full of natural wealth and, like the entire area, generates significant covetousness, including from the Chinese.
New civil icebreakers to develop the Northern Sea Route
Beyond raw materials, the challenge also lies in the opening or development of new navigation routes, the melting of the ice allowing increasingly long periods of passage for commercial ships. An environmental development linked to climate change which should also facilitate access to hydrocarbon reserves or mining resources in the region. Concerning navigation routes, although at this stage it is not a question of replacing the major international maritime routes, since the Arctic fortunately remains covered by ice for part of the year. But the development of the Northern Route (NSR), for which Moscow aims for overall traffic of 150 million tonnes of goods per year by 2030 (38 million tonnes in 2024, including more than 3 million tonnes in transit) , is of strategic interest for Russia. It allows the country to partly break its isolation by having direct trade between its Arctic production zones and China, its main customer. But also between its most distant regions. This, on routes that she can control. And to support its objectives, Russia must build dozens of icebreaker ships.
Commissioned in 2020, the Arktika, the first of seven Project 22220 nuclear icebreakers.
Hence, also, the renewal and growth of the fleet of Russian civilian icebreakers (currently around thirty units), which make it possible to accompany commercial ships to open passage for them in areas where There remains a thick ice floe, as well as the access channels to the port terminals bordering the NSR. Others are also employed for support and resupply missions, for example offshore or land-based but very isolated sites.
With this in mind, Moscow has launched several new construction programs, in particular Project 22220 intended to renew nuclear-powered icebreakers dating from the Soviet era. In total, seven ships were ordered from the Admiralty Shipyards for the Russian group Rosatom. Head of series, the Arktika, notified in 2012, was launched in 2016 and put into service in 2020. 173 meters long with a width of 34 meters and a displacement of around 33,000 tonnes under load, it is equipped with two RITM 200 reactors of 175 MW each and three 36 MW turbines driving three lines of shafts for maximum speed of 22 knots in open water. The Arktika is capable of sailing at 1.5/2 knots in ice thickness of up to 2.8 meters. Its first twin, the Sibir, entered the fleet in December 2021, followed by the Ural in November 2024. And the fleet now has a fourth unit of this type since the Yakutiya was delivered on December 28. The fifth icebreaker of this type, the Chukotka, was launched in Saint Petersburg last November for entry into service scheduled for the end of 2026, while the sixth, the future Leningrad, is currently being assembled after it was laid down in January 2024. As for the seventh and last of the program, which will be called Stalingrad, its construction must begin this year.
Next will come a new class of even larger nuclear-powered icebreakers, the Leader class (Project 10510). Mastodons measuring 209 meters long, 48 meters wide and 69,700 tonnes fully loaded, equipped with two 315 MW reactors. A size and power which should allow them to navigate in ice thickness of up to 4 meters and, above all, to sail at nearly 10 knots in a thickness of 2 meters. Never seen before, the objective of such a project is obviously to significantly reduce the navigation time of commercial convoys in polar zones. Named Rossiya, the first ship of this type was ordered from the Svezda shipyard near Vladivostok, where its construction began in July 2020, with layup occurring a year later. Its entry into service is now planned for 2030. Two other units of this class are to follow later.
View of the future icebreaker Rossyia, of the Leader type.
At the same time, Russia is also modernizing its fleet of conventionally powered icebreakers, in particular to guarantee access to its current ports in the Baltic, the Far North and as far as the Far East, but also to support the development of new infrastructure, as well as mining sites. Several units were built in the 2010s between the Vybord shipyards and those of Helsinki, in Finland, including in 2014 the Baltika (76 meters, 9 MW) which can navigate in 1 meter of ice, then a series of three ships of 120 meters and with a power of 16 MW capable of operating in 1.5 meters of ice. These are the Vladivostok, Murmansk and Novorossiysk, delivered like the Baltika to the Russian Federal Agency for Maritime and River Transport, in 2015 and 2016. The Finnish manufacturer then completed, on behalf of the Russian company Sovcomflot (SCF) four icebreaking supply ships of 104 meters and a power of 20 MW capable of operating in 1.5 meters of ice. They were delivered in 2016 and 2017, after a first order for two neighboring ships built in Helsinki in 2012 and 2013.
The Aleksey Chirikov, built in Helsinki and delivered in 2012 to Sovcomflot.
Other Russian icebreakers were then to see the light of day in Helsinki but the war in Ukraine and Western sanctions taken against Moscow put an end to these projects. Thus, the order for a large ship to be based in Murmansk and scheduled for delivery at the end of 2024, was canceled in 2022. The same happened with other European shipyards which were to contribute to the growth of the fleet of Russian icebreakers, like the Dutch manufacturer Royal Niestern Sander, which launched the Merkury Sakhalin (76 meters) in 2021 intended to operate in the shallow waters of the East coast of Sakhalin Island. While the activity of Russian shipyards is constrained by sanctions, Moscow is therefore looking for new partners to continue the development of its non-nuclear propulsion fleet. Russia is looking in particular towards India, where discussions are underway for the order of four icebreakers, the Indian press indicated last October.
© An article from the editorial staff of Mer et Marine. Reproduction prohibited without consent of the author(s).
