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Russia Launches Most Powerful Nuclear Icebreaker Arktika (VIDEO)

© Sputnik / press service of the company "Baltic Shipyard" / Go to the mediabankThe Arktika, the first vessel in the series of three Project 22220 LK-60 Nuclear Icebreakers being built by Baltic Shipyard Shipbuilding.
The Arktika, the first vessel in the series of three Project 22220 LK-60 Nuclear Icebreakers being built by Baltic Shipyard Shipbuilding. - Sputnik International
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Russia's new Project 22220 nuclear-powered icebreaker dubbed "Arktika" was launched from the Baltic Shipyard in Russia's second-largest city of St. Petersburg on Thursday.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — In May, the director general of Russia's nuclear icebreaker fleet operator Rosatomflot said that Arktika would be launched from the Baltic Shipyard in the coming summer, ahead of its initial late-2017 planned launch.

Built at the Baltic Shipyard, which belongs to Russia's United Shipbuilding Corporation, project 22220 is the world’s largest and most powerful vessel of its kind.

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The launch was expected to be attended by Russian upper house speaker Valentina Matvienko, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin, St. Petersburg Governor Georgi Poltavchenko, Russian nuclear energy corporation Rosatom CEO Sergei Kirienko, United Shipbuilding Corporation President Alexei Rakhmanov and prominent Russian polar explorer Artur Chilingarov, according to the Baltic Shipyard.

The Project 22220 vessel is 189.5 yards long and 37.1 yards wide. The ship displaces 33,540 metric tons. Fitted with two specifically designed RITM-200 nuclear-power reactors, new vessels of this kind will be able to escort convoys in the Arctic, breaking ice up to 10 feet thick and 13 feet deep. Nuclear fuel for the vessel's RITM-200 nuclear-power reactors is to be produced by the TVEL fuel company by the end of the year.

In 2014, the Baltic Shipyard signed a contract worth 84.4 billion rubles ($1.2 billion) with Rosatom to build two Project 22220 icebreakers by 2020. The ships will be commissioned in December 2019 and December 2020 respectively.

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