Article Posted on : - Dec 20, 2010

Yantar Shipyard, Kaliningrad.

MOSCOW (BNS): Russia has begun constructing its first Project 11356 frigate for Russia's Black Sea Fleet at the Yantar Shipyard in the Baltic exclave of Kaliningrad.

The ship will be named Admiral Grigirovich after Russia's Naval Minister Ivan Grigirovich, who was in office in 1911-1917, according to a news report by RIA Novosti.

The Project 11356 is a guided-missile frigate designed to counter surface ships, submarines and airborne targets operating alone or embedded into convoys.

Yantar Shipyard is also constructing three Project 11356 frigates for the Indian Navy under a $1.6 billion contract signed in 2007, the report added.

Named INS Teg, INS Tarkash and INS Trikand, the three vessels will be armed with BRAHMOS supersonic cruise missiles, 100-mm guns, Shtil air defense system, Kashtan air defense gun/missile systems, torpedo tubes, and anti-submarine warfare helicopters.

INS Teg, which was floated out in November 2009, is expected to be handed over to India in mid-2011. The second and third warships are expected to be delivered in 2011-12.

The second warship, INS Tarkash, was floated out in June this year.