Initially, the delivery of the vessel was scheduled for 25 December 2019. However, on 24 December it was reported that while Viktor Chernomyrdin was technically ready and manned, the delivery had been postponed to the first quarter of 2020. According to the United Shipbuilding Corporation, the new icebreaker would be handed over to Rosmorport once all legal and financial issues with the customer have been resolved. Until then, Rosmorport had refused to pay the excess cost of the vessel beyond the original contract price of about 8 billion rubles, currently estimated to be between 3 and 4 billion rubles on top of that. Since the December 2019 delivery date had not been extended by a new governmental decree, this cost overrun could have been further increased by a penalty of up to 1 billion rubles for the missed deadline.
