On March 19, 2006, at a special ceremony at a shipyard at Severodvinsk, the Russian Navy laid the keel of its third Borey class strategic submarine (SSBN), able to launch long-range nuclear armed missiles. The new boat was named the Vladimir Monomakh, after a great prince of medieval Kievan Rus, considered the ancestor of the great princes of Moscow. According to comments by Chief of the Navy Admiral Vladimir Masorin at the ceremony, the first Borey class submarine, the Yuri Dolgoruki, is scheduled to enter service in 2008, and the second, the Alexander Nevski, is 50 percent completed. The keel of the fourth Borey class submarine will be laid in a year. Masorin did not disclose the total planned number of SSBNs in the new class, noting only that they will number “more than four or six.” He also said that Borey SSBNs will be deployed in both the Northern and Pacific Fleets. (Previously some independent experts had predicted that only the Northern Fleet would continue to deploy SSBNs, and that such vessels would be phased out of Russia’s Pacific fleet as they reached the end of their service lives.) [1]

The laying of the keel of the third new SSBN could be regarded as definitive proof that the Russian nuclear Navy has emerged from its hiatus of the 1990s, when it seemed the naval leg of the strategic triad might be phased out altogether. The new SLBM project (“Bark”) was canceled in the mid-1990s, and the construction of the first Borey SSBN was placed on hold. The third new SSBN suggests that the rebuilding of the naval strategic force is a long-term project, that the government is confident it will be able to finance it, and that, eventually, Russia may obtain a significant survivable fleet of SSBNs comparable to the naval leg of the U.S. triad. In the coming years, it will be important to observe whether the Russian Navy will also be able to restore the intensity of its SSBN patrols, which have declined to one or two per year and hindered the survivability of its SSBN fleet.

A few days prior to the keel laying ceremony, Russian Minister of Defense Sergey Ivanov visited the Moscow Institute of Thermal Technology (MITT) and was briefed on progress in developing and deploying two new strategic missiles, the “Topol-M” land-based intercontinental missile (ICBM) and the “Bulava” submarine-launched missile (SLBM), which is intended for Borey class submarines. [2] Both missiles were designed at MITT. Fifty silo-based “Topol-M” ICBMs have been already deployed. A few days after Ivanov’s visit to MITT, a State Commission chaired by the chief of the Academy of Strategic Rocket Forces, Yuri Kirillov, and a Council of Chief Designers, after a meeting at a test range Plesetsk, recommended that the road-mobile version of the “Topol-M” missile be adopted for deployment, as well. [3]

Judging by the media’s concentration on “Bulava,” Ivanov was apparently particularly interested in the progress of that missile. The first, and so far the only, underwater test launch of that missile was conducted in September 2005. With deployment of “Bulavas” on the first Borey class SSBN scheduled begin in two to three years, it may be impossible to thoroughly test the new missile before it is placed in operation, a factor that may help explain Ivanov’s close attention to the system. Russian Admiral Edward Baltin (Ret.) angrily criticized the haste and apparent underfinancing of the project, noting in a commentary on Ivanov’s visit that during the Soviet era, the Navy usually conducted about 30 flight tests of each new SLBM type before adopting it for deployment. [4]

In connection with Ivanov’s visit to MITT, several new details regarding the “Bulava” were disclosed. The missile weighs less than 50 tons, making it lighter than the “Topol-M.” It was also confirmed that “Bulava” will carry 10 nuclear warheads. For the first time in the history of Soviet/Russian submarine-building, “Bulava” will be launched at an angle to the submarine’s course instead of vertically. This should enable submarines to launch missiles without completely stopping as was the case with all previous types of SSBNs. The new launch method also allows elimination of a special “cap” (“cavitator”), which weighed several tons, on top of the missile. On previous types of submarine-launched missiles, this “cap” helped to clear a path through the water for the missile and was dropped once the missile reached the surface. [5]
In a separate trip in mid-March, Sergey Ivanov also visited KrasMash, the plant in Krasnoyarsk, Siberia which produces missiles for the older Delta IV SSBNs (designated as 667 BDRM according to Russian classifications). These liquid fueled SLBMs, known as “Sineva” (“Blue Sky”), are a replacement for the SS-N-23 (RSM-54 “Skiff”) missiles. The new version, dubbed RSM-54M, will carry ten warheads instead of four, and will have an upgraded missile penetration capability. [6]

Coupled with the 1999 decision to perform an overhaul of the Delta IV SSBNs (in which the overhaul of two SSBNs is complete and one more is underway), the production of the “Sineva” SLBMs demonstrates that the Navy intends to retain the six Delta IV submarines which it currently possesses. As Borey gradually replaces older SSBN classes, it is clear that the Russian Navy intends to maintain a fleet of at least twelve SSBNs for the foreseeable future.

Nikolai Sokov – Monterey Institute Center for Nonproliferation Studies