POLAR RIG: Nuclear-powered icebreaker ‘50 Years of Victory’, berthed at the Arctic port of Murmansk | Photo Credit: M Ramesh

One ship that Russia is building is likely to have a far-reaching ripple effect, touching global logistics, environmental impact (positive and negative) and geopolitics. Because this ship will do something that has never been done before — open up the Northern Sea Route, an Arctic fast-track shipping lane that shortens the voyage between Asia’s far east and Europe by a good 30-40 per cent, for round-the-year navigation.

When it embarks on its seafaring career in the freezing cold anytime between 2027 and 2030, Rossiya will be the world’s largest nuclear-powered icebreaker ever built. It will weigh a massive 70,000 tonnes, almost as a US Nimitz-class aircraft carrier, and will be powered by two identical nuclear reactors with a total capacity of 630 MW. Imagine — a nuclear power plant almost as big as the recently commissioned RAPP-7 in Rajasthan, on a ship! The two reactors deliver a shaft power of 120 MW to the propellers, twice as much as any of the other three n-powered icebreakers that Russia is building. (Russia is the only country to have a fleet of (eight) nuclear-powered icebreakers.) Rossiya is designed to be so big that the Baltic Shipyard in St Petersburg — where Russia has built all its n-icebreakers — can’t handle it. So, Atomflot, an enterprise of Russia’s nuclear major Rosatom, which owns the nuclear fleet, is getting it built at the more modern Zvezda shipyard in the Far East, near Vladivostok.

But the point about Rossiya is not its size, but what it does — which is unique. It can break an ice sheet 13-ft thick — far more than any other icebreaker. An icebreaker is designed differently. While the bow of ships is pointed for streamlining effect, an icebreaker’s bow is curved and raised, so that it can climb on to a sheet of ice — like a battle tank over a steep mound — and crush it with its weight. So, weight matters, and Rossiya is specially designed to throw its weight around.

Because of its unique abilities, Rossiya can — and will — make the NSR navigable even during winter months, raising Russia’s geopolitical heft. At present, the western part of the NSR is amenable for round-the-year shipping, while the eastern part (Laptev Sea to Bering Strait) is more challenging with thick winter ice. Rossiya will change that. On this development hinge several logistical, environmental, climate-change and geopolitical issues.

Fuel saving

It is obvious that the 5,600-km NSR will save ships a lot of fuel — which is a positive for climate action. When oil prices rise, NSR will be more favoured — Russia will be doubly happy, with revenues coming from both oil trade and NSR.

The shipping industry has taken due note of the NSR’s fuel-saving potential. Traffic through NSR has been steadily increasing, from 4 million tonnes in 2012 to 38 mt in 2024. While this is still a fraction of the global shipping cargo of about 12 billion tonnes, the rising trend in NSR use offers a glimpse into the foreseeable future, once Rossiya gets into action.

While the NSR’s role in fighting climate change is beyond question, its environmental impact is a matter of debate, with points and counterpoints on both sides.

The Arctic region is about 21 million sq km — bigger than the US and Canada put together. It is home to nearly 21,000 species of splendid flora and fauna. Environmentalists say that icebreaking is a noisy affair, which can disturb the local fauna’s habitation and migratory patterns. Further, while the icebreakers may be nuclear-powered and hence environmentally benign, the diesel ships following in their wake are likely to leave soot over the ice, affecting albedo and accentuating ice-melt — not so climate-friendly.

The counter to that is that icebreakers have been around for eight decades. An icebreaker typically leads a convoy of ships and, hence, in action only once in a while. As for soot, well, the entire shipping industry is expected to move away from diesel to fuels like LNG, methanol, green ammonia or, indeed, nuclear. There is (only) one nuclear-powered container ship, Sevmorput, because they are costly to build but if the NSR becomes a more regular shipping route, then there could be more ships like Sevmorput. In any case, the NSR’s footprint is small, compared with the Arctic vastness.

Environmentalists point out that while any environmental impact may seem localised, its ripples will reach far. Russia insists that it has taken care to ensure that the NSR has little or no environmental impact, even locally. NSR is both an economic and geopolitical tool, which Russia wouldn’t want to cede to environmentalists. (To illustrate, days before the recent Trump-Putin meeting in Alaska, Reuters reported that the US mulled using Russian n-powered icebreakers for its gas projects in Alaska.)

Yakov Antonov, Director General, Atomflot, told businessline recently in Murmansk, Russia, that after installing monitoring systems, setting up a dedicated marine research centre and reviews by international experts, “there is now a substantial body of knowledge confirming the absence of any negative impact of the nuclear icebreaker fleet on the Arctic ecosystem”.

Not all appear convinced, but there is little doubt that the NSR is going to see more activity — and Rossiya will play a big role in it.

(The writer was in Murmansk at the invitation of Rosatom)

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Published on September 1, 2025