The Krasin icebreaker reached the Sakhalin Bay in Russia's Far East early on Sunday to join a rescue operation to free a group of ships caught in heavy ice floe, a spokesperson for Russia's Far East Shipping Company said.
The Admiral Makarov and the Magadan icebreakers have been working in the area for almost a week.
"Krasin arrived in the Sakhalin Bay on Sunday, and is moving toward the Admiral Makarov icebreaker which is helping the Bereg Nadezhdy refrigerator vessel to break through the ice," Tatyana Kulikova said.
The Bereg Nadezhdy, the Professor Kizevetter research vessel and the Sodruzhestvo fishery mother ship became trapped in two-meter-thick ice in the Sea of Okhotsk on December 31. More than 400 people are on board the vessels.
Two other ships, the Mys Yelizavety and the Anton Gurin, got stuck Monday but one was subsequently freed and the other managed to cope with the situation on its own.
On Friday, the Admiral Makarov towed the Professor Kizevetter to thinner ice and handed it to a support icebreaker, the Magadan, which is taking it to open waters.
Kulikova said the rescue was hampered by strong winds, low visibility and shifting ice floe in the area.
However, officials believe that with the arrival of Krasin the stranded ships could be freed as early as on Tuesday.
Freeing the Sodruzhestvo is expected to be the most difficult task as Admiral Makarov and Krasin would have to coordinate their efforts to clear a wide canal in a thick ice floe to allow a wide-body vessel to reach open waters.
The Krasin icebreaker was built in 1976 and named after the legendary Soviet icebreaker that was engaged in the 1928 operation to rescue the Italian polar expedition led by Umberto Nobile.
MOSCOW, January 9 (RIA Novosti)
