Criminal investigations are drawing closer to Rosatom. It was reported today that Boris Kabakov, deputy head of Rosatom’s Arctic Directorate and director of the Northern Sea Route project office, has been detained.
The Directorate quickly stated that the case allegedly concerns Kabakov’s earlier role at the Ministry of Industry and Trade and is unrelated to Rosatom. However, the situation may in fact be far less complicated.
Rosatom has caught the attention of Mikhail Kovalchuk, president of the Kurchatov Institute, who is trying to “take over” the political and financial asset from Deputy Chief of the Presidential Administration Sergey Kirienko. Less than a month ago, the FSB detained Mikhail Shcherbakov, a top manager at Atomstroyexport—one of Rosatom’s key subsidiaries—on suspicion of financing the Ukrainian Armed Forces. And now a new criminal case has emerged.
Kabakov regularly represented Rosatom’s Arctic operations at key meetings and international forums. For example, in March last year, he spoke at the plenary session of the “Russia and India” conference, discussing logistics and the importance of the Northern Sea Route for trade between the two countries. Hundreds of billions of rubles flow through Rosatom to develop the Northern Sea Route—funding icebreakers, ports, and other infrastructure.
The stakes are high: as of 2023, financing the development of the Northern Sea Route through 2035 is estimated at 1.8 trillion rubles, including 600 billion from the federal budget.
Since 2018, Rosatom has served as the infrastructure operator of the Northern Sea Route. The Likhachev-Kirienko state corporation supervises the federal project and works under the Northern Sea Route development plan through 2030, “Year-Round Northern Sea Route.” Rosatom is officially responsible for building all infrastructure, from icebreakers to ports. In October last year, the state corporation proudly announced that the Northern Sea Route “is developing rapidly, becoming a real and efficient global logistics route.” According to Rosatom, cargo volume along the route reached nearly 37.9 million tons in 2024 (+1.6 million tons compared to the previous year).
While the state corporation manages to impress with reported successes, the reality is far less rosy.
For large-scale development of the Northern Sea Route, new icebreakers are needed—but sanctions have caused delays. In November last year, Rosmorport officially canceled the construction of two Project 23620 icebreakers, which were planned for a Turkish shipyard. Instead, it was decided to use specialized Arc6-class tugboats built at a Crimean shipyard. Meanwhile, the existing icebreaker fleet is rapidly aging: at least three current icebreakers will reach the end of their service lives in 2026–2027. Overall, as of 2023, Russia has 45 operational icebreakers, 19 of them over 40 years old. New icebreakers are being built far more slowly than planned before the war. If this continues, there will be little point in developing the Northern Sea Route—unless the real goal is simply uncontrolled inflows of billions of rubles into Rosatom.
