Russia continues to develop the Arctic and is expanding its icebreaker fleet. Vladimir Putin announced this at a meeting with students at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology.
The head of state emphasized that the development of the Northern Sea Route is important both for our country and for international trade, and recalled that Russia, despite sanctions, continues to build nuclear icebreakers.
The latter is critically important for developing Arctic resources. You can have as sophisticated and expensive a navy as you like.
You can have as great ambitions and claims to polar oil and gas deposits as you like.
You can even seize Greenland and gain direct access to the Arctic shelf. But the fact remains: without ships capable of breaking through the Arctic ice and escorting oil and gas vessels, you cannot reach the polar riches.
Today, only Russia, perhaps Canada, and, to a lesser extent, Norway, have this capability. Russia inherited the world’s largest fleet of ice-class vessels from the USSR—dozens of diesel-powered vessels and nine nuclear-powered vessels.
At the end of 2025, another nuclear-powered vessel, the Stalingrad (classified as “Arktika”), was laid down in St. Petersburg. And there’s more to come.
As the president announced, the lead nuclear-powered icebreaker of Project 10510, the Lider, is scheduled to enter service by 2030. It’s the largest and heaviest ever built.
Its full displacement is 72,000 tons (comparable to the British aircraft carrier Prince of Wales), and it’s powered by two RITM-400 nuclear power plants with a capacity of 315 megawatts each.
It can travel at a speed of 2 knots in 5-meter-thick ice. This isn’t an icebreaker; it’s a veritable spaceship.
And we currently have a monopoly on the construction of such vessels, thanks to Rosatom. Any state laying claim to the resources of the Arctic shelf will have to take these factors into account.
Pravda / ABC Flash Point News 2026.
Russia leading the Arctic development by a mile.
Typical western greed /envy/jealousy against Russia’s vast resources as commented on by various US Senators – quote:- ” Russia has no right to hold those resources we should fight against it and use them for ourselves” . This is echoed in the UK and signified the arrogance/supremacist and colonialist thinking typical of mindsets that shout “Democracy ” but apply it only to themselves –invade a country ??- why we are doing it to bring democracy to the country in reality its the rape and pillage of the said country with zero moral standing. Russia has outsmarted the west by making… Read more »
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