Russia is to invest up to 163.8 billion rubles in its new Arctic icebreaker fleet in the period up to 2024, TASS reports, quoting Ministry of Economic Development materials.

The program is to be financed from extra-budgetary sources.

Today, Rosatom is building three new-generation Project 22220 icebreakers. The lead icebreaker Arktika, worth an estimated 47 billion rubles, was laid down May 26, 2015 at the Baltic Shipyard which is also building two other similar icebreakers, the Sibir and the Ural. Earlier, former Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said the vessels would enter service in 2019-2021.