As almost every year, December 2024 brought interesting news about the Russian Navy. In keeping with “good Soviet tradition,” by the end of each year Russian shipyards sought to complete important stages of new shipbuilding. 2024, despite the devastating Russian war in Ukraine, was an interesting and fruitful year for the Kremlin’s naval forces in this regard.
On December 27, a ceremony was held at the Sevmash shipyard in Severodvinsk for the commissioning into service in the Northern Fleet of the Arkhangelsk (K-564) nuclear-powered missile submarine (SSGN). It is the fourth unit of the project 885M (08851) Yasen-M. The keel of the Arkhangelsk was laid on March 19, 2015, and it was launched on November 29, 2023. It is the second Project 885M submarine to join the Northern Fleet (the first was K-561 Kazan). The other two joined the Pacific Fleet (K-573 Novosibirsk and K-571 Krasnoyarsk).
Project 08851 submarines are a modification of the base project 885 design, of which only a prototype was built – K-560 Severodvinsk. Submarines of projects 885 Yasen and 885M Yasen-M are for the time being the only underwater carriers of 3M22 Tsirkon hypersonic anti-ship missiles. In addition to them, they can fire 3M54 anti-ship missiles and 3M14 cruise missiles of the Kalibr-PL system.
Serial production of more project 885M submarines is underway at the shipyard in Severodvinsk. Currently in various stages of construction are: Perm, Ulyanovsk, Voronezh, Vladivostok.
