Shipping: This Is Just Weird—Russia's Nuclear Powered Container Ship Going To Antarctica

We've looked at this ship a few times and can't figure out what the Russians are up to.
And now Antarctica? In winter?

Cold's a'comin and even the icebreakers, the American Polar Star, heading for home port and China's Xuelong 2 , currently dropping off supplies for a couple of their southern research stations are wrapping up the season.
Or will it sail in six months? If so why advertise the voyage now?

From The Barents Observer:
Nuclear-powered «Sevmorput» gears up for Antarctica voyage

The «Sevmorput» has just been removed from the dry-dock at Kanonerskiy yard in St. Petersburg where the propellers are shifted and other hull maintenance work took place.

It was late last year the Barents Observer reported about that the 260 meters long ship had to sail all south from her homeport Murmansk to St. Petersburg for the work since the Kola Peninsula no longer has a dock big enough to take the ship.

The floating dock SD-50 at the Roslyakova shipyard north of Murmansk previously used for «Sevmorput» sank in October 2018.

The nuclear-powered container ship is by the end of February expected to sail out to the Baltic Sea, through Kattegat and the North Sea on her return voyage along the coast of Norway to the Barents Sea port of Murmansk.

Rosatom, Russia’s state nuclear corporation, informs in a Facebook update that the «Sevmorput» later this year will sail across the globe with construction materials aimed for the country’s Vostok research station in inland Antarctica.

Founded by the Soviet Union in 1957, the Vostok station is the place on earth with the lowest ever reliably measured temperature with −89.2 °C. The station is 1,253 km from the South Pole. The «Sevmorput» will deliver the cargo on the coast from where it will be transported into the frozen continent....MORE

Here are some previous posts on the ship:
September 3, 2019
"The Nuclear Powered Container Ship Sevmorput Is Going to Haul Salmon Along the Northern Sea Route (and Norway and Denmark)"

This is an odd story. First off the Sevmorput is old. It went into service in 1988.
Secondly, although I haven't asked about the costs, you would have to assume a nuclear cargo ship would have to carry some high value cargo to pay the freight, so to speak.

Last March the ship was carrying construction materials and equipment from Archangel to Novatek's LNG 2 project off the Ob river and we were going to do a post on this oddball ship and its five day trip.
That at least made sense: high-value cargo short distance, entirely within Russian waters....

September 11, 2019
"Norway Would Like To Know If Russia Plans To Make More Salmon Hauling Trips With Their Nuclear Container Ship":

....If only there was some sort of land based transportation mode that could make the trip, something that crossed Siberia, Trans-Siberian if you will, that was comprised of individual cars that could be hooked up in train.  And get the damn salmon to Moscow in days not weeks.

Maybe put 'em on a boat in Petropavlovsk and sail them across the Sea of Okhotsk to Sovetskaya Gavan, whose harbormasters are (reputedly) eminently bribable and will speed your multi-modal perishables on their way west to wind up in some fat mafioso's belly. Ditto for Vladivostok but you'll need to wave a bit more cash to get anyone's attention.

November 11, 2019 
Russian Plan For Second Salmon Hauling Voyage With Their Nuclear-Powered Container Ship Cancelled

Ya think?
They were transporting fish on a nuclear powered ship.
The long way. (vs land transport):
Seriously what are the Russians up to with this?

 
I'm starting to think this is some sort of Bond-villain caper, with the propeller story just a ruse to cover for the fine-tuning of the under-hull submarine docking chamber.
Or something.

Maybe it's related to the submarine disaster last July that killed 14 high ranking officers (captains and commanders).
We had quite a few links to that Russian oddity:
Just What Was That Stricken Russian Submarine Carrying?

Tragedy at Sea: The Russian Submariners Could Have Been Saved

Still unanswered are the two questions raised almost immediately after the July 1 incident:
1) What were so many senior officers practicing on the deep-diving submersible?
2) Why did the "High Ranking Military Official" say at the funeral service:

“Today we are seeing off the crew of a research deep water apparatus, who died while performing a combat mission in the cold waters of the Barents Sea. Fourteen dead, 14 lives,” he is quoted as saying. “At the cost of their lives, they saved the lives of their comrades, saved the ship, did not allow a planetary catastrophe.”

So who knows?