Russia released the world’s biggest, maximum effective icebreaker on Thursday in St. Petersburg.
The Arktika is 568 feet long and powered via nuclear reactors. It may break through ice 13 ft deep, NPR’s Mary Louise Kelly reports. Stump Blog
The ship set forth early, ahead of its deliberate 2017 launch, consistent with Sputnik news and the shipyard wherein the Arktika changed into built.
“She is considered one of several new icebreakers planned for Russia’s growing fleet — a fleet already larger than all other countries combined,” Mary Louise reviews.
“Russian hobby within the Arctic is rising, as worldwide warming opens up shipping routes and gets admission to the mineral sources.”
In addition to launching new icebreakers, Russia is constructing new bases inside the Arctic Circle and modernizing its nuclear submarines.
Mary Louise says the stairs are “unmistakable alerts of Russia’s intent to reassert itself on the worldwide level.”
As we formerly stated, the U.S. Coast Guard presently operates one heavy icebreaker that can access the Arctic and one smaller research vessel.
Adm. Paul Zukunft, commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard, instructed NPR’s Jackie Northam last year that Russia has more than two dozen oceangoing icebreakers.
Five countries—the U.S., Russia, Canada, Norway, and Denmark—have territorial claims to the Arctic’s lands and waters.
