Courcy’s Intelligence Brief

Recent Russian naval activity in the Mediterranean has drawn attention to renewed Russian naval ambitions, and at least some Russian commentators have drawn bullish conclusions, with talk of preventing “a Libyan scenario” in Syria.  However, last week we highlighted the dire state of the Russian Pacific Fleet, and the truth about the Mediterranean manoeuvres is likely to be less impressive than the Kremlin would like the rest of the world to believe.

It has been interesting to see, for instance, the questioning of the Kremlin’s announcement that the exercise in the Mediterranean would be followed, in 2015, by a permanent deployment of the Russian navy to the region.  The plan was immediately queried by former navy chief of staff Admiral Viktor Kravchenko, who said that the navy had neither enough seaworthy ships nor the logistical support.

Back in December, retired Admiral Valentin Selivanov, former chief of staff, contributed to the debate on the quality of the Russian navy by saying: “Not a single ship or a single submarine has been built for the past 21 years.  This has never happened in the navy’s 315-year history. 

The admiral also said: "The missile cruiser Slava, now called Moskva, which entered service back in 1982 and is now 30 years old, is the youngest ship in the Black Sea Fleet.  The nuclear-powered missile cruiser Petr Velikiy, which I was supposed to accept in Leningrad back in 1990 but which was not delivered until 1999, is the youngest ship in the whole of the Russian Navy."

This may have been a slight exaggeration given that some smaller ships have come into service in the past decade, but the impression it gives of a far from vibrant Russian navy is surely correct, as Russian reports about activity in the Mediterranean before and after the January exercise suggest.

For instance, on 21 February, the Russian military news agency Interfax-AVN reported that the Kashin-class destroyer Smetlivyy was undergoing “urgently needed repairs” which were preventing it from resuming operations in the Mediterranean.  It had also broken down during an exercise with the Italian navy in November 2012.  It was reported that the 47-year-old landing ship Saratov broke down “almost as soon as it put to sea” and had to be rescued by a tug.

In other reports collated by the BBC Monitoring Service, on 2 January Interfax said that the Black Sea Fleet landing ship (LST) Tsezar Kunikov - which was part of the Russian Navy task force in the Mediterranean for several months in 2012 - was scheduled for two years of repairs in the Bulgarian port of Varna, from March. 

On 17 January, the Russian state news agency RIA Novosti reported that two further Black Sea Fleet LSTs - Novocherkassk and Nikolay Filchenkov - put in for repairs at Sevastopol and were unable to take part in the Mediterranean exercise.  The breakdown of three of the Black Sea Fleet's five LSTs required the Russian Navy temporarily to assign two Baltic Fleet LSTs, Kaliningrad and Aleksandr Shabalin, to the Black Sea Fleet to assist with Mediterranean deployments.

No warship larger than a frigate is being built, and former Russian Defence Minister Anatoliy Serdyukov has admitted that the Russian Defence Ministry has no plans to build aircraft carriers and ships to support them in the period up to 2020. 

Nevertheless, there are in fact quite a number of ships under construction, or planned, and President Vladimir Putin recently said that $130bn has been allocated up to 2020 "for the creation of modern, balanced surface ships and submarines".  The building programme includes:

- six Project 955 Borey-class nuclear ballistic missile submarines, of eight planned (one thought to be in service, three undergoing trials or under construction, and two to be laid down this year);

- two Project 885 nuclear submarines (one almost built and another under construction);

- three Project 677 Lada (improved Project 636 Kilo) conventionally powered submarines, of six planned for the Black Sea Fleet (one thought to be in service and two others laid down);

- three Project 22350 Admiral Gorshkov-class frigates, of six planned by 2020 (one finished and two more undeer construction);

- four Project 11356 Admiral Grigorovich-class frigates, from a class of six for the Black Sea Fleet (three under consruction with the fourth due to be laid down);

- six Project 20380 corvettes (two in service, two on trials and two under construction);

- and Project 20385 corvettes (whose future is considered uncertain).

- At least six smaller warships are also in the pipeline, namely the Project 11661K missile ship Dagestan and five Project 21630/21631 "small missile ships".