Russia fails to report trials of nuclear icebreaker in Gulf of Finland

Bilateral agreement requires advance notification

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The Russian shipyard Baltiisky Zavod, based in St. Petersburg, ran two weeks of sea trials on a newly-built nuclear icebreaker in the Gulf of Finland and further out in the Baltic Sea earlier this month. According to the shipyard's announcement, the 50 Years of Victory icebreaker passed the trials without problems.
      The authorities in Finland were blissfully unaware of the testing, despite the existence of a 1996 agreement between the two nations, according to which any movement by a nuclear-powered vessel closer than 300 kilometres from the Finnish coast should be reported.
     
"Of course they should have informed us of the construction of the icebreaker, not to mention testing it", says Professor Jukka Laaksonen, Director General of the Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority in Finland (STUK).
      According to Laaksonen, STUK should be made aware of nuclear activity in the region, so that the authorities might take appropriate precautionary measures, even if the likelihood of something going wrong on a nuclear icebreaker is minute.
      The Finnish authorities have a comparatively broad understanding of the two small nuclear reactors used on the vessel, which provide its engines with an impressive 75,000-horsepower output. With regard to their safety, the Finnish officials would hardly have had anything to complain about.
      The Finnish maritime authorities, in turn, do not ask to be notified of movements of nuclear-powered vessels, so long as they sail in Russian territorial waters or in international waters.
     
The 50 Years of Victory has been in the making for 13 years. At first it was known on the stocks as Ural. Its construction was halted for several years due to lack of funding, and the final contract for completing the project was only signed in 2003.
      The ship is the largest nuclear-powered icebreaker in the world. The 25,000-ton vessel has a crew of 138, and it is capable of crushing ice up to 2.8 metres thick. Its buyer is a company based in the northern city of Murmansk, and delivery and handover are scheduled for March.
      Russia currently has seven operational nuclear-powered icebreakers. Two were built in Finland in the 1980s, and the reactors for this pair of ships were also installed in St. Peterburg.


Links:
  Russia tests nuclear icebreaker on open sea (RIA Novosti)

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