Uranium Ural

Short answer: Ural is a Project 22220 nuclear-powered icebreaker, the third ship of the class after Arktika and Sibir. It's operated by Atomflot, part of Russia's state nuclear corporation Rosatom, and registered in Murmansk.

Baltic Shipyard in Saint Petersburg laid its keel on July 25, 2016, and it was launched on May 25, 2019. Its reactors had already been lifted aboard while it was on the slipway. Delivery was planned for 2020 but slipped to 2022 because of delays with its domestically made steam turbines. After sea trials in October 2022, its flag was raised on November 22, 2022, and on December 2 it left Murmansk on its first icebreaking mission, to the Kara Sea. The ship is 172.7 m long and 34 m wide. Two 175-megawatt RITM-200 pressurized-water reactors, fueled with uranium-235 enriched to up to 20%, make steam for two turbogenerators. Their electricity drives three 20-megawatt motors, each turning a 6.2 m four-bladed propeller, for 60 megawatts in total. At full power in deep water, the design calls for breaking level ice 2.8 m thick at a steady 1.5 to 2 knots. By taking on or pumping out ballast water, the crew can vary the draft between about 9 m and 10.5 m. That lets the same ship work the deep Northern Sea Route and the shallow estuaries of Siberian rivers such as the Yenisei. The name had been chosen once before, for the last Arktika-class icebreaker in 1989, which was renamed 50 Let Pobedy during construction. The footage shows Ural's red, white and blue superstructure and dark-blue hull, marked 'УРАЛ' and 'РОСАТОМФЛОТ', moving through snow-covered ice at dusk.

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