China’s Navy Makes First Ever Submarine Deployment to Russia: Two Destroyers Sail to Vladivostok for Exercises

The Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy has made its first ever submarine deployment to Russia, with a Kilo Class attacks submarine which was purchased from Russia in the 1990s sailing to Vladivostok for joint exercises. The warship was accompanied by two Type 052D Class destroyers and one Type 903A Class supply ship, as well as a submarine rescue vessel. The Russian Navy’s own fleet participating in the joint exercises will be led by a Soviet built Udaloy Class destroyer. The Chinese warships deployed were drawn from both the northern and eastern fleets, indicating a possible intention to expose crews from a more diverse array of commands to joint exercises. While the Type 052D is one of China’s most modern and capable destroyer classes, the Kilo Class submarine is an older and less advanced submarine class, and has long since been surpassed in its capabilities by the indigenous Type 039A Yuan Class. It has been speculated that Kilo Class ships may have been selected for deployment to avoid leaking details on the more sensitive Type 039A’s accosting signature to adversaries such as the United States and Japan while in transit.

The Kilo Class serves as a lighter and shorter ranged counterpart to both China and Russia’s nuclear powered attack submarines, and has a hull shaped like a drop of water and a propulsion plant isolated on a rubber base so it does not touch the hull, to prevent vibrations from turning into noise. The class’ air regeneration system can supply the crew with oxygen for up to 260 hours, giving the ship an underwater endurance of almost two weeks. Although cutting edge for its time, the Kilo Class’ capabilities are today considered far from outstanding, particularly when compared to the advanced Japanese and South Korean vessels using lithium-ion batteries. Although Russia remains a world leader in the capabilities of its nuclear powered submarines, with the new Yasen-M Class attack submarine considered among the quietest in the world, the lack of a successor to the Kilo Class is expected to undermine its position on global arms markets, potentially providing China with an opportunity to export its increasingly more advanced vessels.

Type 052D destroyers have been deployed for exercises with Russian forces with growing frequency, with one such ship having made a visit to St. Petersburg in July 2024 beforejoining the Russian Navy for joint exercises in the Gulf of Finland near the end of the month. This occurred less than three weeks after the deployment Chinese forces to Belarus for unprecedented joint exercises near its borders with NATO, and less than a week after the first ever joint Sino-Russian bomber patrol off the coast of Alaska. The exercises highlighted China’s growing support for Russia and Belarus as they faced growing military pressure from the Western world.

The Type 052D currently forms the backbone of the Chinese Navy’s surface combat fleet, and since entering service in 2014 has seen two dozen of its class commissioned into service. This makes it by far the most widely fielded destroyer class in the world other than the U.S. Navy’s Arleigh Burke Class. The warship’s design draws a stark contract to destroyers in the Russian Navy, as no new destroyers have been laid down for the service since the disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991. Each Type 052D destroyer deploys 88 vertical launch cells, 24 of which are reserved for HHQ-10 surface to air missiles, while the remainder deploy a combination of missile classes including HHQ-9 long range surface-to-air missiles and the YJ-18 anti-ship cruise missiles. The warships are reported to have also integrated the new YJ-21 hypersonic ballistic missile, which is widely considered the world’s most capable class of ship-launched anti-ship weapon.