According to the Russian news agency TASS, the Russian Navy will start the construction of the new super aircraft carrier after 2025.
The construction of the 330-meter long aircraft carrier called 23000Ε “Shtorm”, is one of the most important programmes of the Russian Navy and is expected to last five years. The designing and construction of the new vessel is a highly demanding task for the Russian shipbuilding industry.
A military source stated to TASS,
“The Russian Navy makes very stringent requirements on how the aircraft carrier should look, but we do not see anything that we can’t do in those requirements.”
According to the same source the most difficult part will be,
“coordinating what the Russian Navy needs and what industry can offer with regard to the fact that the air carrier should meet the requirements not of yesterday and today, but of tomorrow”.
Besides the aircraft carrier the Russian Navy is going to build a new series of six patrol ships for the Black Sea Fleet and two similar vessels for the Arctic.
These vessels will be built by 2020 at the Zelenodolsk and Vyborg shipyards. As the Russian Navy Commander Admiral Viktor Chirkov said
“The ships will be able of long-term staying at any area of the World Ocean with possible rotation of the crew and shipyard checks at any port, including some foreign ports”.
According to Admiral Chirkov,
“The ships will be able of long-term staying at any area of the World Ocean with possible rotation of the crew and shipyard checks at any port, including some foreign ports”.
Finally the Commander of the Russian Navy announced the modernisation of ten nuclear-powered submarines by 2020.
More precisely two Russian shipyards, the Zvyozdochka in the northwest and the Zvezda in Russia’s Far East, will upgrade ten Project 971 Akula-class SSN, Project 945 Sierra-class I SSN and Project 949A Oscar-class II SSGN nuclear-powered submarines in the coming years.
The reason behind this modernization programme is the delays that the construction of the Project 885 Yasen-class SSGN submarines is facing. The eight submarines of the new class were supposed to replace the eight old Project 949A Oscar II-class SSGN submarines that serve at the Northern and the Pacific fleets, by 2020.
Only one vessel of the eight Yasen-class the K-560 Severodvinsk, is in service at the moment while three more submarines of the improved version Project 855M Yasen-M are under construction.
The exorbitant costs of the submarines and the difficulties of the Russian economy have delayed the development of the construction programme. and therefore the Russian Navy decided to modernize ten of its old nuclear powered submarines.