Arctic

Arctic Ocean

Found this in a story on Unherd:

Russia, whose territory spans around 53% of the Arctic Ocean shoreline, and China are rapidly developing plans to expand the Northern Sea Route. The maritime passage between the east and west of the Arctic Ocean is regarded by the Kremlin as vital to avoid Western sanctions. It is already possible to navigate the route for anyone with several briefcases full of dollars to pay for the mandatory Russian ice breakers which accompany any transit as patrol vessels. In 2024, the Kremlin is planning to commence year-round navigations of the route, through which it hopes to increase the amount of cargo shipped from around 30 million annually to 80 million.

I read a couple more paragraphs and decided whatever they were talking about didn't interest me, but here's some pictures of Russia's nuclear ice breaker Arktika.

The "Arktika" is the first days of January sailing north of the Taymyr Peninsula awaiting to assist an LNG tanker coming from Asia via the Northern Sea Route. Photo: Rosatomflot

Arktika, the first of three LK-60 icebreakers