Russia puts largest nuclear icebreaker to sea

Moscow, Apr 2: Russia's largest nuclear-powered icebreaker today left St Petersburg for Murmansk in the far north of the country.

''The icebreaker was launched on the Baltic Sea and set sail for its port of assignment in Murmansk,'' a spokesman for the St Petersburg-based shipbuilder Baltiisky Zavod told RIA Novosti news agency today.

''The icebreaker will follow a Northern Sea route for the ice channeling of vessels during the 2007 spring navigation period,'' he said.

The '50 Years of Victory' icebreaker, which has been under construction since 1989 and was built at the Baltiisky Zavod ship factory, was successfully tested last February.

An upgrade of the Arktika-class icebreaker, the159-m long and 30-m wide vessel, with a deadweight of 25,000 m ton, is designed to break through ice upto 2.8 meters deep. It has a 138-man crew.

The Russian nuclear-powered icebreaker fleet, which is operated by the Murmansk Shipping Company, currently consists of five Arktika-class icebreakers (Arktika, Sibir, Rossiya, Sovetskiy Soyuz and Yamal) and two Taymyr-class river icebreakers (Taymyr and Vaygach).

Russia will need six to 10 nuclear-powered icebreakers in the next 20 years, as demands grow with the development of the Arctic shelf and increased traffic along the Northern Sea route, the agency quoted experts as saying.

UNI