Regular year-round navigation via NSR to begin in 2027 with launch of Lider-class icebreakers - NSR directorate chief

MOSCOW. Jan 25 (Interfax) - Regular and uninterrupted year-round navigation along the Northern Sea Route (NSR) will start in 2027, Vyacheslav Ruksha, deputy head of Rosatom and chief of the Northern Sea Route Directorate told reporters in Murmansk on Tuesday.

"The most important issue is regular year-round navigation, and that it has guaranteed speed modes. This task will be solved, for sure, in the next 10 years," Ruksha said.

"A Lider-class nuclear-powered icebreaker is being built for this purpose. I hope that in December 2027 we will be able to confidently say that we have regular year-round navigation," he added.

As reported, the Zvezda shipyard is currently building the first project 10510 Lider icebreaker, the customer for which is the Atomflot Federal State Unitary Enterprise, with which the shipyard signed a contract in April 2020. Rossiya was chosen as the name for the lead ship. The icebreaker will have a capacity of 120 MW, which allows for overcoming ice more than 4 meters thick and providing year-round icebreaking in the eastern region of the Arctic.

The introduction of the first Lider-class vessel is planned for 2027.

In December 2020, Alexei Besprozvannykh, deputy head of the Russian Industry and Trade Ministry, said that construction of the second and third Lider-class nuclear icebreakers is scheduled to begin in 2023 and 2025, with commissioning dates of 2030 and 2032, respectively