Seven more icebreakers are currently under construction to RS class at Russian shipyards
The Russian icebreaker fleet consists of 41 icebreakers, including 34 diesel and 7 nuclear powered. The fleet’s total shaft power reached 697.2 MW, the Ministry of Transport press office reported.
Vitaly Savelyev, the Russian Minister of Transport said that there are seven icebreakers at various stages of construction at Russian shipyards. The vessels are built to RS class and under the technical supervision of the classification society. Among them, the Leader class (Project 10510) ead nuclear-powered icebreaker with rated power of 120 MW, which was laid down in 2021. The Project 22220 “Arktika”, “Ural” and “Sibir” (60 MW each), have been rated so far as the most powerful nuclear ships in the world,.
State-owned Rosmorport operates 34 icebreakers, including the world’s most powerful non-nuclear icebreaker Viktor Chernomyrdin with rated power of 25 MW. There are 23 linear icebreakers under Rosmorport’s management (including 7 shallow-draft ones), as well as 11 support ships, harbor icebreakers and icebreaking tugs.
Petrozavodsk, Karelia based Onego Shipyard (OSSZ,) hosted a keel-laying ceremony in November 2023 for the second vessel of Project 22740M series of shallow-draft icebreakers. The class icebreaker was laid down in May 2023.
The Project 22740M vessels are rated the most powerful icebreakers in Russia with a shallow draft of 3.2 m, propeller horsepower of 6 MW and Icebreaker6 ice class.