In the Moscow Armistice, signed on 19 September 1944, Finland agreed to pay war reparations of US$300 million to the Soviet Union.

The war reparations, paid in the form of ships and machinery over six years, included the newest steam-powered state-owned icebreakers Voima and Jääkarhu.

[8] The main dimensions of the new 4,415-ton icebreaker, large enough to escort 10,000-ton dry cargo ships or 16,000-ton tankers, were based on the old Jääkarhu, but the triple-expansion steam engines were replaced with a modern diesel-electric propulsion system, similar to the 1939-built Sisu, with a combined output of 10,500 shp.

However, extensive research and recent experiences had shown that bow propellers improved the icebreaking capability because their flushing effect reduced the friction between the broken ice floes and the hull of the ship.

As a result, the new Finnish icebreaker was designed with two bow propellers which would produce a more powerful and, more importantly, symmetric flushing effect.

[10] The construction of the first Finnish post-war icebreaker was awarded to Wärtsilä in 1948, but due to lack of funding the keel of the ship was not laid down at the Hietalahti shipyard until 29 May 1951.

On 9 February 1954, only four days before Voima was commissioned, it was decided to move the new icebreaker under the Finnish Navy, where it would replace the 77-year-old Von Döbeln as the supply ship for the torpedo boats during the summer months.

As a result, the ports of Kotka and Hamina were effectively closed during the first months of the following winter, trapping a number of ships in the harbors, as Voima was the only icebreaker stationed in the eastern part of the Gulf of Finland.

During the extremely difficult winter of 1956, she broke all previous records by escorting or otherwise assisting 616 icebound ships, among them the steam-powered icebreakers Sampo and Tarmo that had been immobilized by compressive pack ice.

Voima also proved the superiority of two bow propellers in Baltic ice conditions and experiences from her first years in service were used to design the new Karhu-class icebreakers in the late 1950s.

As a result, the 25-year-old Voima was extensively rebuilt by Wärtsilä Helsinki Shipyard in 1978–1979 at a cost of about FIM 86 million,[20] 60 % of the price of a new icebreaker of comparable size.

Although Voima had been involved in minor collisions and other incidents in the past, she had not been grounded until 11 April 2003, when she ran aground while assisting a small German cargo ship in difficult conditions outside Helsinki.

[27] She is also technically the oldest icebreaker in the world still in active service,[28] although after her extensive refit in the late 1970s not much remains of the ship launched in 1952.

[31] There is also a growing public opposition to Arctic drilling which could result in an ecological disaster in case of a major oil spill.

The new state-owned icebreaker would be designed to be able to move continuously in level ice with a thickness of 1.6 metres (5.2 ft) and reach an average speed of 9 to 11 knots (17 to 20 km/h; 10 to 13 mph) during escort operations in the Baltic Sea.

However, when the vessel was ordered on 22 January 2014, it was stated that it would instead primarily replace the Atle-class icebreaker Frej that the Finnish government has charted from Sweden.

While Voima holds the highest Finnish-Swedish ice class, 1A Super,[3][4][12] it has hardly any meaning for icebreakers which are of considerably stronger build than merchant ships operating in their care.

Despite being the most advanced icebreaker in the world, Voima still looked aesthetically pleasing with her low, gently rounded hull and superstructure.

[2] Although Voima was built with two small cargo holds for storage purposes, most of the space under the main deck is occupied by the engine and propulsion motor rooms, making the icebreaker literally "a ship loaded with power".

The crew, now accommodated in individual cabins high in the superstructure away from the noises generated by the icebreaking process, was reduced to 44 due to advancing automation.

[4] When Voima was built, she was powered by six 1,500 kW (2,000 hp) 8-cylinder Atlas Polar K58M two-stroke diesel engines driving 1,370 kVA Strömberg direct current generators.

[25] Prior to the refit, the propulsion power was fed to four direct current electric motors located in separate engine rooms, two in the stern and two in the bow, through an applied Ward Leonard drive system.