Lenin (icebreaker)

The Soviet Union's Lenin was the world's first nuclear powered icebreaker.

The Lenin, launched by the Soviet Union in 1959, was the world's first nuclear powered icebreaker. So far the Soviet Union, and its successor state, modern Russia, are the only countries to operate nuclear powered icebreakers.

In 1992 Russian officials acknowledged that the Lenin, like its Navy's nuclear powered submarines, had routinely dumped its highly radioactive used cores into the Arctic Ocean, without making any effort at containment.