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It will also be capable of swiftly passing through the 2.5 meters thick ice fields.

“The estimated cost will include construction work, building a shipyard etc. But the most expensive part of the icebreaker is the Rhythm-200 reactor and various pieces of know–how” Aleksey Kravchenko from OSK ship Building Corporation told Izvestya.

“By the time we get to the series we will be able to lower the cost by 30 percent” he added. 

Russia is the only country in the world that is currently building atomic icebreakers and specialists say it needs them to keep control over the Arctic basin.

“Icebreakers are used to transport huge tankers to the oil and gas shelf in the Arctic region. The new type of icebreakers, capable of breaking 3 meter thick ice, could be used commercially all year round” said Kravchenko.

The new Icebreaker-9 (170 meters long, 34 meters wide) will supersede “50 year Victory”, the current biggest icebreaker – it’s 159 meters long and 30 meters  wide.

Specialists say that the new type of Icebreakers will be universal because they can be used both in the Arctic area and on rivers. And that is what’s unique about them.

 “We had nothing like this before and we really need such icebreakers”, Yuri Sinelnikov, from the Baltic shipbuilding plant in St Petersburg told Izvestya.

Russia currently has 5 icebreakers cruising the Arctic. They were built between 1985 and 2007.