Russia on Friday floated a new icebreaker for its navy, the first one in about 45 years, and a further sign of Moscow's growing military focus on the Arctic. Built at the Admiralty Shipyards in Saint Petersburg, Russia's second-largest city and home to its Baltic fleet, the Ilya Muromets is the first of a series of icebreakers ordered by the defence ministry in recent years.
"In 2017 this icebreaker will join the Northern Fleet to ensure our priorities in the northern basin," Admiral Igor Zvarich, who heads the technical department of the Russian navy, said during the ceremony. The Ilya Muromets is an 85-metre (278-feet) long electric-diesel powered icebreaker with the dead-weight of 6,000 tonnes and is designed to help the deployment of the navy in icey conditions as well as escort or tow other ships.
It can cut through ice of up to one metre thick and travel the entire 5,600 kilometre (3,480 mile) length of the Northern Passage, according to the defence ministry. Last month the shipyard signed a new contract with the defence ministry for two Arctic corvettes, capable of acting as ice breakers, which will be armed with cruise missiles and delivered in 2020.
Construction for those two ships will begin this fall, said Admiralty Shipyards chief Alexander Buzakov. Russia has made the Arctic a priority in its new military doctrine, building a string of bases and holding war games there at a time when parts of the polar region are contested by different nations. Last year Russia filed a claim in the United Nations over a vast swathe of the region, including the North Pole. The government estimates that the Arctic shelf contains some 4.9 billion tonnes of hydrocarbons. Interest in the Arctic has flared up in recent years as rising temperatures open up shipping routes and make hitherto inaccessible mineral resources easier to exploit.