The Arktika nuclear-powered icebreaker, symbolizing Russia's ambitions to conquer the Arctic, made its maiden voyage today.

Arktika, designed to transport liquefied natural gas from the Arctic, is a giant ship 173 meters long, 15 meters high, has a displacement of 33,500 tons and can break nearly 3 meters thick ice.

"This only domestically produced ship will experience the extreme conditions in the Arctic for the first time, where it has to assert its position as flagship in Russia's icebreaker fleet," Baltic Shipyard

Arktika is scheduled to dock at the port of Murmansk, northwest Russia in the next two weeks, after performing performance tests on the way.

Started in 2016, Arktika is the first ship in a new generation of Russian icebreakers called Project 22220, with a capacity of 60 megawatts, built by the Russian Atomic Agency, Rosatom.

In April, Russia said that it was about to build a new nuclear icebreaker called Leader, more than 200 meters long, 40 meters high, with a capacity of 120 megawatts, expected to launch in 2025. The estimated cost of the Leader ship is up to

Russia is the only country in the world to operate a large nuclear icebreaker fleet, allowing for its ambitions to boost cargo traffic along the Arctic coast, while also facilitating travel between the Pacific and Atlantic.

Economic development in the Arctic is one of the important goals of President Vladimir Putin.