Russia begins testing the first specialized patrol military icebreaker "Ivan Papanin" in the history of the Russian Navy. The Navy urgently needs ships of this class. "Ivan Papanin" will be an ideal tool to deter American attempts to pressure Russia in the Arctic.
The military icebreaker Ivan Papanin of project 22550 is preparing to enter factory sea trials with a full-time crew on board. "The sailors accepted the material part from the factory workers and began to develop it. The launch of the factory sea trials will take place in the summer," the Russian Defense Ministry reports. As stated, the crew is "fully ready to test Russia's first patrol icebreaker."
As previously announced, the ship should be handed over to the fleet in 2024. Three more ships of this project are currently under construction: "Nikolai Zubov" – for the Navy, two more, "Purga" and "Dzerzhinsky" – for the Coast Guard. The commissioning of even one such icebreaker should give the Navy a number of fundamentally new opportunities.
The Arctic and military icebreakers
The ongoing special military operation in Ukraine is distracting public attention from other potential theaters of military operations (Theater of Operations). But the tasks facing these theaters have not disappeared anywhere. This fully applies to the Arctic Theater of Operations, where the Northern Fleet of the Russian Navy is called to fight.
The polar cap of the Arctic Ocean serves as a shelter for our nuclear submarines armed with ballistic missiles – the maritime component of strategic nuclear forces. The Arctic is being intensively developed by domestic mining companies. The Northern Sea Route (NSR) has regular sea transit with potential for growth. It also exports liquefied natural gas.
The United States is constantly trying to challenge Russia's position in the region, including through various demonstrative actions and intelligence gathering. Not so long ago, the American icebreaker Healy of the US Coast Guard passed along the route from the Bering Strait to the Norwegian Tromso. American and British submarines are conducting operations to search for our submarines under the ice. The growing tension in relations with the United States, which will only increase, will inevitably lead to an intensification of American actions in the Arctic.
The United States openly calls its actions in the Arctic "provocations." The goal of the United States, as stated by the American military, is not to allow Russia to dominate the Arctic and control the Northern Sea Route. The possibility of such provocations on the NSR is officially announced by the Russian Defense Ministry. And one of such provocations by the United States has long been planned and proclaimed – the so-called Operation to protect freedom of navigation on our Northern Sea Route. If we do not go into details, this is a malicious abuse of the so–called right of peaceful passage, when a warship of one country passes quickly and non-stop through the territorial waters of another, without conducting unfriendly actions and without including reconnaissance equipment.
Such passage is guaranteed by Article 19 of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea - and there is nothing special about such a passage in form. But the Americans, firstly, have not ratified this Convention. Secondly, they send their ships purposefully into foreign territorial waters – this passage is their goal. In addition, they use these passages for propaganda purposes, posing as "defenders of global freedom of navigation."
"In the Arctic, it is important for the United States to defend the international status of the NSR Straits and show that warships can pass through them without requesting any permission," Pavel Gudev, head of the working group on the study of the policy of the United States and its allies in the oceans of the E. M. Primakov IMEMO of the Russian Academy of Sciences, pointed out in this regard.
The only thing holding the United States back so far is the fear that something will happen to their only icebreaker suitable for the Arctic, the Healy, in our territorial waters. In the event of any icebreaker accident, the United States will be completely helpless in the Arctic, they will have to accept Russia's help, which will turn out to be a colossal political failure of Washington.
But, first of all, the United States can take a risk. And most importantly, the United States has its own icebreaking program, and one ship has already been laid down. The first heavy icebreaker with a range of more than 10 thousand kilometers from the United States may appear in 2028.
Indeed, Russia has many more icebreakers than the United States, but all these icebreakers were designed as civilian ones, and they are engaged in conducting ships along the NSR. There are no weapons on board, no electronic warfare equipment, no special military communication systems, and their survivability standards are not military.
To fend off a potential threat to Russia, several military icebreakers of special construction were needed, better armed than the future heavy icebreakers of the US Coast Guard. We needed ships that could, for example, track an American icebreaker in the ice, capable of winning a battle with a lightly armed icebreaker, capable of carrying a military helicopter on board and marines. And now such a ship is being tested for the first time.
Icy Battlefields
Russian combat icebreakers will have a lot of tasks. It's not just about countering American provocations and monitoring what the United States is doing off the Russian coast in the Arctic. In the future, the Navy will have to begin systematic under- ice torpedo training . And military icebreakers are needed to provide them.
Inevitably, there will be a question of organizing a full-fledged hydroacoustic underwater lighting system in the Arctic in order to fully possess information about what is happening underwater. And it is also impossible to ensure this without military icebreakers.
A military icebreaker is an excellent tool for putting pressure on the enemy.
Not only Americans can cruise off our shores, we can too. We can also make a demonstrative landing of a Marine platoon on the ice a couple of miles from American territorial waters. Just so they don't forget that Russia is not somewhere out there in Europe, no - we are neighbors with the United States. If the Americans organize any temporary military bases on the ice, the ship will be able to inspect them point-blank. In the event of a real war in the Arctic, the new icebreaker will be able to conduct military convoys through the ice.
The fact that the Navy receives two ships is quite logical, such a number will always allow you to have a ship ready for battle and campaign, and you don't need more. The fact that the Coast Guard receives two of the same ships is also very good – they have no less tasks in the ice than the Navy, and their small icebreakers of the 97-P project are small in displacement and require updating. But that's still a few years away.
For the Russian Navy, a new "ice" era is coming this year, with the entry into service of the lead ship. And "Ivan Papanin" will definitely not be left without a job.
Alexander Timokhin