The Arbitration Court of St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region ordered the recovery of 227.9 million rubles from the Krylov State Research Center (KGNTs) in favor of the Sogaz insurance company. The decision is related to the incident on the lead nuclear icebreaker of Project 22220 "Arktika", where a fire occurred in the starboard propulsion electric motor in February 2020.
The emergency occurred at the stage of the vessel's construction — during commissioning when voltage was applied to the engine. As a result, one of the two main propulsion units of the icebreaker failed. The Baltic Shipyard, which acted as the general contractor, handed over the "Arktika" to the customer — FSUE Atomflot — in October 2020 with only one functioning engine. Full-fledged operation of the vessel became possible only after replacing the damaged power plant, which was carried out in August 2021 after the icebreaker returned from its first navigation.
The electric propulsion system, including the burnt-out engine, was supplied to the Baltic Shipyard by the Krylov State Research Center for 1.5 billion rubles. The center developed the first domestic high-voltage (10.5 kV) system with a capacity of 60 MW, designed specifically for new generation nuclear icebreakers. The equipment itself was manufactured by the Moscow enterprise "Ruselprom."
Expert commissions investigating the accident proposed three different versions of the causes of the fire, but the court, based on the case materials, placed responsibility for the damage on the KGNTs as the system supplier. The insurance company, which paid compensation to the injured party, is now seeking reimbursement of losses from the equipment developer in a regress manner.
