MOSCOW, September 29. /TASS/. Icebreaking operations ensuring sailing along the Northern Sea Route (NSR) will be carried out entirely by Russian icebreakers, and no foreign icebreakers will be used for this purpose, Minister for Development of the Far East and Arctic Alexey Chekunkov said.
"Capital will not be only Russian, but the icebreaking service – exclusively Russian, the space support – exclusively Russian, and security – Russian. And, most importantly, our sovereignty over the Northern Sea Route, as I have said, our Northern Fleet is the unconditional and indispensable condition for using the Northern Sea Route," he said.
The Northern Sea Route is a shipping route in the Russian Arctic that runs along Russia's northern shores of the Arctic Ocean seas (the Barents, Kara, Laptev, East Siberian, Chukchi and Bering Seas). It connects the Russian Federation's European and Far Eastern ports, as well as mouths of navigable Siberian rivers, into a single transport system. NSR's length from the Kara Gate Strait to the Providence Bay is 5,600 km.