State-of-the-art Russian military icebreaker damaged in Ukrainian drone strike on Vyborg

A brand new Russian military icebreaker thought to have cost at least €220 million was damaged in one of the Ukrainian military’s largest drone strikes on Russia to date, Ukrainian Telegram channel Exilenova+ reported on Wednesday.

The icebreaker, which has been under construction at the Baltic port of Vyborg, in Russia’s northwest, since 2023, was seriously damaged in the strike overnight on Tuesday and can be seen listing on its port side in photographs published following the incident.

Most media outlets have identified the icebreaker as the Purga, one of four vessels being built for Arctic operations for the Federal Security Service (FSB), which oversees Russia’s coast guard, and the Russian Navy. However, at least one Russian blogger has claimed that the damaged icebreaker was actually the Dzerzhinsky, which is also under construction in Vyborg.

Though there has been no confirmation of the vessel’s name, The Barents Observer, a Norwegian independent media outlet, confirmed that the image showed a Project 23550 icebreaking patrol ship, which are capable of breaking ice up to 1.7 metres thick and are used to conduct search-and-rescue operations, and for transporting cargo to remote locations. 

The attack, the first time a Ukrainian drone has damaged a Russian warship in the Baltic Sea, was part of large-scale Ukrainian strikes across northwestern Russia on Tuesday. The governor of the Leningrad region said that up to 56 drones had been intercepted over the region, while the authorities in Latvia and Estonia both reported incursions into their territory by wayward drones.