Russian Navy - News and Analysis

Pictures shared by Twitter user Rob Lee showed a lack of progress on the construction of the new dry dock for Russia's only aircraft carrier RFS Admiral Kuznetsov at the 35th ship repair plant. The shared photos showed the construction site on June 12, 2020 as well as how it looked at November 2019. The Google Earth picture of June 12 revealed that very little to almost no progress was made in the construction of the new dry dock during this period. Construction progress during November 2019 Since the sinking of the PD-50 floating dry dock, Russia does not have the facilities large enough to dock its only aircraft carrier, RFS Admiral Kuznetsov. The solution put forward was to take two existing dry docks and tear down the concrete barrier that separated them. This would create a dry dock large enough in with to dock the RFS Admiral Kuznetsov whenever work and maintenance is needed on the ships hull located under the water line. A contract was given to the IEC (Inves...

July 27 Russian intelligence vessel RFS Yantar left the port of Baltiysk around 15:18 Zulu. The intelligence collection vessel is normally stationed in the port of Sveromorsk with the Northern Fleet though she was constructed at the Yantar shipyard. The vessel can also serve as a host for rescue submarines. [ 1 ]  July 28 S-400 Triumph air defense systems were used during an air-defense exercise in the Kaliningrad Region. The unit was instructed to leave their barracks and conduct a road march towards their deployment area. During the deployment phase, the unit had to fight of an attack on its vehicles. Once deployed, the unit had to fight of another attack of hostile sabotage and reconnaissance units. Once safely in position, the S-400 missile systems were set up and had to fight off several attacks of both aerial and ballistic threats. Pantsir-S1 air-defense systems provided close range air-defense for the deployed S-400 systems. The whole exercise took place under...

July 20 Baltic Fleet Naval Infantry stages a training amphibious landing at the Khmelevka training grounds in Kaliningrad. The troops were loaded up to various transport ships during July 19 and were met by several smaller warships before setting of the Khmelevka training grounds. The amphibious landing followed the an earlier patters that is withnessed in the latest exercises. Engineer units arrive by shipborne Ka-27PS helicopters and start making safe routes through the minefields on the beach. Air assault units of the Naval Infantry meanwhile arrive in Mi-8 helicopters and start engaging the enemy forces defending the beach. Once the engineers clear the routes, the landing ships then arrive and land the main force. for this exercise, over 500  troops were involved with over 42 pieces of military equipment, including 20 BTR-82A IFVs. [ 1 ] [ 2 ] [ 3 ] The Severnaya shipyard at Saint Petersburg started the construction of two new Project 22350 Admiral Gorshkov class ...

July 13 Russian media sources reported that the Udaloy class destroyer RFS Vice Admiral Kulakov and the Oscar-II class submarine RFS Orel held a series of exercises during the night of July 12 to 13. The exercises involved air-defense and anti-submarine warfare. the exercise reportedly took place in the Gulf of Finland. [ 1 ] July 14 Frank Bottema  reported the deployment of various Russian warships in the Baltic Sea and manage to capture several of them on satellite imagery. The first set of pictures showed the Type 636 improved Kilo class submarine RFS Volkhov in conjunction with a Steregushy class corvette, a Parchim class corvette and a Sibiryakov class hydrographic survey vessel. All ships were located east of the Swedish island of Gotland. The Swedish patrol vessel HSwMS Trosso and the Latvian patrol vessel P-09 were also in the vicinity. The second set of pictures showed the amphibious landing ship RFS Pyotr Morgunov at sea near Baltiysk, together with several o...

  July 6 Around 150 military personnel in Kaliningrad have started their course in operating BMP-2 Infantry Fighting Vehicles during river crossings. The crews will first undergo training in practical driving safety requirements, pass swimming standards, and conduct emergency exit training exercises before operating their vehicles. The training itself will take place at the Pugachevo and Pravdinsky training grounds. [ 1 ] Unexploded ammunition was defused on various locations inside the Kaliningrad Region. Afterwards, the defused ammunition was brought to several military training grounds for subsequent destruction. The ammunition was describes as 52-mm and 100-mm artillery shells found in the city of Svetly, Zelenograd urban district and an anti-personnel mine found on the Yantar shipyard. [ 1 ] July 7 Tank crews in Kaliningrad conducted a live firing training started a week long exercise which involve over 200 military personnel with over 20 pieces of mi...

On Friday June 03, the Head of the Research and Design Center at the Burevestnik Central Research Institute, Pavel Kovalev, launched the idea to arm Russian surface warships with the new Koalitsiya-SV artillery system. The 152mm Koalitsiya-SV artillery system currently exists as a self-propelled howitzer which will replace the 2S33 Msta-SM2 self-propelled artillery system currently in use with the Russian ground forces. Koalitsiya-SV self-propelled artillery Specialists at the Burevestnik Institute claim that a standardized module can be used on both land vehicles and warships. It is important to note that the specialists are talking about a module, rather then the 152mm gun itself. This would mean that entire artillery system with its turret and loading mechanism would be used to equip naval warships. While at first glance, this might be a good idea, a more in depth look shows that the proposal is not feasible without major changes to the artillery system. The Russian Na...