MOSCOW (Sputnik) — About 20 ships and submarines of the Russian Navy are currently undergoing repairs and modernization, a Russian defense industry source said Monday.
"At the moment, some 20 warships and submarines of various series, including the missile cruiser Marshal Ustinov, the heavy nuclear-powered missile cruiser Admiral Nakhimov, the large anti-submarine warfare ships the Admiral Chabanenko and the Admiral Tributs, the guard ship Neustrashimy, the large amphibious landing ships the Kaliningrad and the Oslyabya, are being repaired and modernized," the source told RIA Novosti.
The Russian Navy will receive two modernized nuclear missile cruisers by 2021, the source said.
The Admiral Nakhimov missile cruiser is currently undergoing repair and modernization at the Severodvinsk port’s Sevmash shipbuilders and will reenter service in 2018. In 2019, the Pyotr Veliky (Peter the Great) missile cruiser will go in for repairs and modernization.
“Work on the repairing and modernization of the Pyotr Veliky may begin in 2019 after the Admiral Nakhimov is finished with repairs and modernization at the end of 2018. So, by 2021, the Navy will have two modernized nuclear missile cruisers.”
The Admiral Nakhimov, formerly named the Kalinin, is the third of the four Kirov-class heavy guided missile cruisers that was in service with the Soviet and subsequently the Russian Navy from 1980 to 1998. Only one of them, the Pyotr Veliky, is operational at the moment.
Russia is currently implementing a large-scale rearmament program, announced in 2010, to modernize 70-percent of its military hardware by 2020.
