The icebreakers of the FSUE “Rosmorport” North-Western Basin Branch ensure continuous navigation in the seaports of Big Port of Saint Petersburg, Vyborg, Vysotsk, Passenger Port of Saint Petersburg, Primorsk and Ust-Luga in a situation of intense ice formation.

The icebreaker fleet of the branch is currently represented by 16 icebreakers, including the Kapitan Kosolapov icebreaker, which has recently replenished the branch’s fleet. It arrived in the seaport Big Port of Saint Petersburg from the FSUE “Rosmorport” Arkhangelsk Branch last October.

The Kapitan Kosolapov icebreaker is a twin-screw single-deck vessel with an extended forecastle, bow superstructure, and four main diesel generators with a total capacity of 4,400 kW. The icebreaker has an ice class LL4, which allows it to move through solid ice cover up to 1 m thick at a speed of at least 2 knots.

The North-Western Basin Branch is planning to use the icebreaker in the seaports of Ust-Luga and Vyborg for auxiliary purposes of bunkering and supplying of the branch's vessels.

In accordance with the schedule for the deployment of the icebreaking fleet of the North-Western Basin Branch, the most powerful icebreakers of the branch, the Viktor Chernomyrdin and the Kapitan Sorokin, are currently operating in the eastern part of the Gulf of Finland from the Saint Petersburg Receiving Buoy to the ice edge, ensuring safe navigation along shipping routes in this part of the Gulf of Finland.

The Vladivostok icebreaker, one of the three most modern, maneuverable and powerful icebreakers of project 21900M, operates in the seaport of Primorsk, providing ship calls for large-capacity tankers at the seaport.

The second in a series of icebreakers of project 21900M, the Murmansk icebreaker, together with the Semyon Dezhnev, the Ivan Kruzershtern and the Mudyug icebreakers, provides icebreaking assistance to vessels en route to the seaports of Big Port of Saint Petersburg and the Passenger Port of Saint Petersburg.

The Kapitan Izmailov icebreaker ensures continuous operation of sea terminals in the seaports of Vyborg and Vysotsk, while the Kapitan Nikolaev and the Kapitan Plakhin icebreakers of the North-Western Basin Branch are used in the seaport of Ust-Luga.

With the start of ice navigation, which began in the Russian seaports of the eastern Gulf of Finland on December 6, 2021, the icebreakers of the North-Western Basin Branch have already provided assistance for more than 2.1 thousand vessels.

The icebreakers of the branch operate in difficult conditions of intense ice formation, strong winds of various directions, ice shifts and compression. The ice thickness in the eastern part of the Gulf of Finland currently reaches 35 cm.

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The Kapitan Kosolapov icebreaker of the project 1108 was built in 1976 at the Wärtsilä shipbuilding company (Helsinki, Finland).

The vessel was named after Alexander Dmitrievich Kosolapov, сaptain of the Azov Shipping Company. Alexander Kosolapov was a minesweeper commander during the World War II. He was awarded the Order of the Red Banner and the Order of the Patriotic War of the first class, medals “For the Defense of Odessa”, “For the Defense of Sevastopol”, “For the Defense of the Caucasus”. After the war, for many years he worked as a captain in the Azov Shipping Company, actively participated in public work, including in defense and patriotic field.

Basic specifications of the icebreaker: