The Nuclotron upgrade - the Nuclotron-M project, was successfully completed in 2010. Following the project goals, Xe ions were accelerated to about 1.5 GeV/u in March 2010. In December 2010, the stable and safe operation of the power supply and energy evacuation system was achieved with a field in the lattice magnets of 2 T. In 2011 - 2012 three runs of the Nuclotron operation were carried out. The facility development is aimed to the performance increase for current physical program realization and to test equipment and operational modes of the NICA collider.