[chalcolithic]

Kind of pointless comparing Russian icebreaker number to anyone elses'. Russia is basically a huge pile of snow next to a huge floating pile of ice (geographically, not population-wise, but still). Nobody has even 10% of motivation for building icebreakers that Russia has.

[poincaredisk]

You're probably right about the motivation, but

>Russia is basically a huge pile of snow

Russia is very diverse and it's a huge oversimplification to reduce it to the cold parts. Just like America is not just California, Russia is not just Siberia.