Russian Cruiser with Twin Nuclear Reactor Engines Returns to Sea After Almost 30 Years of Refurbishment

The Russian Navy’s nuclear-powered Kirov Class cruiser the Admiral Nakhimov has for the first time in 28 years begun to set sail under its own power, representing the culmination of over a decade of work to deeply modernise and refurbish what is currently by far the world’s largest class of surface combat ship. Footage has shown the warship underway in the White Sea, with its capabilities set to transform the overall fighting power of the Russian Navy’s Northern Fleet. The Kirov Class is the world’s only class of nuclear powered surface combatant, with use of nuclear propulsion systems significantly contributing to its endurance, and allowing it to sustain maximum speeds for considerably longer periods than conventionally powered vessels. The use of a nuclear propulsion system significantly increases maintenance needs and operational costs, however, and has reportedly been a primary factor complicating efforts to refurbish the vessel and bring it back into service.

Russian sources reported in February that both of the Admiral Nakhimov’s nuclear reactors had been brought online, allowing sea trials to resume in the summer. The Kirov Class was intended to be the first of multiple classes of nuclear powered surface combatants, and was set to be followed into service by the Ulyanovsk Class nuclear powered aircraft carriers, the first of which was laid down in 1990, before the program was cancelled. Although five Kirov Class cruisers were laid down in the Soviet Union, three were scrapped shortly after the state’s disintegration due to an inability of the much diminished post-Soviet Russian economy to afford to sustain them. Russia has laid down no cruiser or destroyer sized ships for its navy since the USSR’s disintegration, and as a result has relied on deeply modernising Soviet era ships with new sensors, electronics and vertical launch systems and missile systems to keep them viable. The refurbishment of the Admiral Nakhimov reflects a part of this broader trend.

Intensive work to modernise the 28,000 ton cruiser began in 2014, and was projected by Russian government sources to be complete in 2018, before a series of delays pushed this back to the end of 2024. Refurbishment has replaced the ship’s 20 vertical launch cells for massive P-700 anti-ship cruise missiles with 80 cells able to accommodate standard sized cruise missiles. These cells are able to accommodate the new Zircon hypersonic cruise missile, which has been particularly widely highlighted by Russian sources as giving surface ships a distinct advantage over their foreign rivals in their long range anti-ship capabilities. A further 96 vertical launch cells have been allocated to housing surface-to-air missiles from a navalised variant of the S-400 long range air defence system, equivalent to the firepower of three full battalions’ worth of ground based launchers. This makes the Admiral Nakhimov by far the most heavily armed class of surface combat ship in the world.