Russia building icebreakers for the Arctic

RUSSIA / FSU POLITICS - In Brief 15 Jul 2021 by Alex Teddy

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Shipyards in St Petersburg are building four nuclear powered icebreakers. Russia wants to assert its control over the Arctic. Global warming has meant that more of that ocean is navigable for more of the year than ever. Moscow hopes that it might even become navigable year round with icebreakers.The Northern Sea Route allows ships from the Atlantic to sail to the Pacific 15 days faster than if they used the Suez Canal. The blockage of Suez earlier in 2021 underscored the importance of the Northern Sea Route. The four new ships are named Sibir, Ural, Yakutia and Chokhota. They will have Murmansk as their base. The ships are 53 m high, 173 m long and can break ice up to 2.8 m thick. The ships are commissioned by the national atomic energy corporation - Rosatom. They cost USD 400 million apiece. It takes at least 1 000 workers over 5 years to build such a ship. The first of the new ships is due to set sail in 2022 and the last will be launched in 2026. One such ship - Arktika - was launched in 2020. The Northern Sea Route is supposed to be an arterial route for trade: exporting Russian oil and gas. Manufactured goods from the Far East can also be exported that way. But with China's Belt and Road Initiative there might be less need to send goods out by sea. Self-driving trucks might also mean that the Northern Sea Route turns out to be less vital than some hope.