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Russian emergency service: Fire reported on nuclear-powered vessel, quickly extinguished

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Russian emergency service: Fire reported on nuclear-powered vessel, quickly extinguished
The Sevmorput, a nuclear-powered icebreaker and cargo ship, at the harbor in Saint Petersburg, Russia, in December 2023. (Rosatom)

A fire broke out on a Russian nuclear-powered icebreaker in the northern Russian port of Murmansk but was quickly extinguished by firefighters, the regional branch of Russia's emergency ministry said on Dec. 25.

The fire occurred in a cabin on the ship, named the Sevmorput, while docked at the port. The ministry initially reported that the fire spread to about 30 square meters, but firefighters managed to contain it before it spread further.

An update issued less than an hour later said that the fire had been extinguished, and there were no casualties.

"There was no threat to crucial support systems or to the reactor facility," Atomflot, the Russian state-owned company that deploys a fleet of nuclear-powered icebreakers, told the Russian state-controlled news outlet RIA Novosti.

The Sevmorput, operated by Atomflot, is a nuclear-powered icebreaker and cargo ship, the only such vessel in Russia's fleet, according to the Russian state nuclear ministry, Rosatom. It was originally constructed in 1988 but has been since modernized.

It was not the first time there have been problems associated with the Sevmorput. The local Norwegian media outlet The Barents Observer reported in 2021 that the ship had stalled near the port of the Angolan capital, Luanda, for a month in 2020 due to a damaged propeller.

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Nate Ostiller

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Nate Ostiller is a former News Editor at the Kyiv Independent. He works on special projects as a researcher and writer for The Red Line Podcast, covering Eastern Europe and Eurasia, and focused primarily on digital misinformation, memory politics, and ethnic conflict. Nate has a Master’s degree in Russian and Eurasian Studies from the University of Glasgow, and spent two years studying abroad at Kyiv-Mohyla Academy in Ukraine. Originally from the USA, he is currently based in Tbilisi, Georgia.

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