The launch of Russia‘s heavy nuclear missile cruiser has been postponed indefinitely due to the cost of its repairs and modernization, according to the Russian news outlet Izvestia.
The heavy nuclear-powered missile cruiser (TARK) Admiral Nakhimov, a nuclear-powered warship, will not go on factory sea trials for its originally scheduled tests on November 15.
The Admiral Nakhimov is in the process of being repaired and modernized to aid Russia’s navy in the Ukraine war at the Sevmash shipyard, which had struggled last year and has been a key component of Moscow’s fighting force since 2022.
Dmitri Lovetsky/Associated Press
Newsweek reached out to the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation for comment via email.
Russian Navy Commander-in-Chief Admiral Alexander Moiseyev confirmed the postponement of the Admiral Nakhimov‘s sea trials in August, and Izvestia‘s sources said the ship will likely go to sea no earlier than 2025.
As this is not the first time the warship’s trials have been postponed, the nuclear missile cruiser was initially supposed to return to the fleet, but increasing repairs costs have kept the ship from being launched.
At more than 200 billion rubles ($2 billion), repairs and modernization costs had nearly doubled since 2023. The Russian government hopes it will replace the only combat surface nuclear-powered ship in the Russian navy, the Pyotr Velikiy.
Russia decided to replace the Pyotr Velikiy, one of two remaining Kirov-class nuclear-powered battlecruisers, with the Admiral Nakhimov due to high maintenance costs and limited use.
Andrey Puchkov, CEO of JSC USC, Russia’s largest shipbuilding company, spoke of the nuclear missile cruiser’s launch in June: “The order and timing of the tests are determined by the general schedule for the repair of the cruiser. The cruiser’s first trip to sea for testing is planned after the completion of the entire range of mooring tests in November 2024. The work is currently being carried out in compliance with the terms of the general schedule.”
Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Navy Admiral Alexander Moiseyev also previously said that as the ship’s trials were scheduled for November, the transfer to the Navy was scheduled to take place in 2025.
The nuclear missile cruise launching ship is undergoing extensive repairs, as military expert Dmitry Boltenkov said that workers at Sevmash “left only the hull and pulled out the filling and began to change it all.”
Discussing the possible reasons for the ship’s launch delays, he continued: “Admiral Nakhimov is a fairly large ship. For this, of course, they attracted a huge number of suppliers of combat systems and weapons. But now our country is undergoing import substitution in full swing. Therefore, perhaps they planned to buy some auxiliary systems in the West, but now they need to be created themselves.”
Boltenkov also spoke of the process of modernization, saying: “The modernization process itself is very complicated. Therefore, the postponement of the deadlines is a normal phenomenon. But as a result, we will get a very powerful combat ship with a variety of modern missile systems. Both with strike missiles of the Onyx type (a supersonic universal anti-ship medium-range missile) and Kalibr (a cruise missile), and with air defense systems.”