Putin Visits Zvezda Shipyard Building Arctic 2 LNG Tankers
Russian President Vladimir Putin has been spending a lot of time in recent weeks visiting the Russian Far East – an area where he probably feels safe from the Ukrainian long-range sanctions program. It is also an area in the strategic depth of a vast country that is as yet untouched by the war with Ukraine.
A visit on September 2 to the Zvezda shipyard in Bolshoy Kamen, across the Ussuriyskiy Zaliv from Vladivostok, was steeped with symbolism. It touches many of Russia’s pet projects and ones critical to its economy. Putin has been a supporter of the development of the Zvezda complex, which in turn is closely tied to Arctic shipping and the Northern Sea Route.
President Putin inspected the Arc7 Class icebreaking LNG carrier Pyotr Stolypin (IMO 9904675), which is designed to operate throughout the year through the ice-bound seas of the Northern Sea Route, the 3,000nm Arctic shipping corridor along Russia’s northern coast. The Northern Sea Route used to be navigable for only two months a year, but melting Arctic ice has extended the shipping season, and the route can now be kept open using Rosatom’s nuclear-powered icebreakers.
The tanker is one of five Arc7 LNG tankers being built at the Zvezda shipyard, to service the Arctic LNG 2 project being developed by Novatek on the Gydan Peninsula in Western Siberia. The primary, and closest destination terminal will be Murmansk, but the tankers are also designed to be able to sail eastwards to a transshipment point in Kamchatka and onwards to China. The fleet will be Russian-flagged and operated by Sovcomflot.
Arc7 Class icebreaking LNG carrier Aleksey Kosygin (Sovcomflot)
The ships, based on the Samsung 172 Yamalmax design, are designed to be able to operate through ice over 2m thick, along the length of the Northern Sea Route. The lead tanker in the class, the Aleksey Kosygin (IMO 9904546), made its first journey to Gydan in December 2025. Like the Pyotr Stolypin, the Kosygin is already OFAC-sanctioned by the U.S. and was last spotted offloading at the Jinhai Heavy Industry facility in Zhoushan, China, on August 25.
Originally, 15 tankers were to be built in the class, in cooperation with Samsung and the South Korean Hanwha Ocean shipyard, plus French sub-contractors. But when the project was sanctioned, the order was slimmed down and the work transferred to the Zvezda yard, and the technically challenging five-ship class is now being completed at Zvezda. The LNG project in Gydan has also been scaled down as a consequence of sanctions, and only one of three planned LNG trains was completed before foreign partners withdrew and exports of specialized equipment were halted, curtailing the scale of the project and the need, at least for now, for such a large number of Arc7 Class tankers. Completion of all the shipbuilding work at Zvezda has necessitated the construction of specialist plants nearby to produce the azimuth thrusters needed for the icebreakers to function, as well as a foundry to produce large-format steel sheets at Primorye.
Freezer-fishing trawler Kapitan Yunak (Kremlin - Presidential Press Office)
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Sanctions and the withdrawal of foreign partners have turned the Arctic LNG 2 project into an economic nightmare. But with the Ukrainian attacks on oil and gas infrastructure across Russia, this plant should at least be out of range and able to maintain production to counter shortages – that is, until the Ukrainians extend the range of their drones out to 3,000km. So far, the longest-range drone attack was the 2,500km raid on the Omsk refinery complex on July 6.
While he was in the Vladivostok area, President Putin also went aboard the newly-launched deep-sea long-range freezer-trawler, the Kapitan Yunak (IMO 9901178). With a gross tonnage of 9,055, the Kapitan Yunak is among the largest and probably most sophisticated of its type. Although not yet sanctioned, it is likely to range far and wide under the protection of its Russian flag.
