I'll take them seriously when one their boomers make a deterrent patrol, and their annual sortie rate per submarine is more than once every three years. :03:

....and they had things like this recently,:hmmm:

Precisely :yep:

To be fair on the latter, it is not clear whether sortie means "any time it put out to port" or what the Americans call "Patrols" and Russians call "Combat Service". If it is the latter, they may be less unready than you think.

Also, it is not clear WHICH submarines got those sorties. It would probably be concentrated among the best subs and the Romeos and Mings getting none.

Certainly, they were good enough to penetrate an American battle group.