New ships will replace the icebreakers “Yamal”, “Taimyr” and “Vaygach”

Three of four existing icebreakers of Rosatomflot will be decommissioned after 2030. This information was given at the session of the forum “The Arctic: Today and the Future” by Leonid Irlitsa, the first deputy director general, Atomflot.

Thus, the icebreaker “Taimyr” commissioned in 1989 and “Yamal” (the beginning of operation in 1990) can be decommissioned in 2029. The icebreaker “Vaygach”, which has been in use since 1990, will be put out of service in 2028. Thus, after 2030 only the nuclear-powered icebreaker “50 Let Pobedy”, which should work till 2041, will remain in service, as the network edition www.tvzvezda.ru reports.

At the same time, Leonid Irlitsa notes that Russia is building new nuclear-powered icebreakers. The first icebreaker of project 22220 “Arktika” is to be sent for sea trials on the 12th of December this year, and the beginning of its operation is scheduled for middle of 2020. Also, the Baltic Shipyard is building two more icebreakers – “Sibir” and “Ural”, which should be input to operation in 2021 and 2022, respectively. In the future it is planned to lay two other nuclear-powered icebreakers of the project.

In addition, it is planned to build three nuclear-powered icebreakers of project 10510 “Leader” at the Zvezda shipyard. They will have the displacement of water more than 71 thousand tonnes, and the capacity of the nuclear power plant will be 120 Megawatt. It is assumed that the icebreakers “Leader” will be able to move in the two-meter ice at the speed of at least 12 knots.