Article Posted on : - Apr 25, 2013

Borey class nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine Yuri Dolgoruky. Photo: Sevmash shipyard.

MOSCOW (BNS): Two Project 955 Borey-class ballistic-missile submarines, the Alexander Nevsky and the Vladimir Monomakh, will enter service by end of 2013, according to an official of the Russian Defence Ministry.

Ria Novosti news report quoting Andrei Vernigora, Director of the ministry's state defence contracts department, said there will be no delays as everything is going according to plan.

The Russian Navy is scheduled to commission the Alexander Nevsky in September, he said.

The Borey class submarines will replace the ageing Project 941 (NATO Typhoon class) and Project 667 class (Delta-3 and Delta-4) boats and become an important nuclear deterrent of the Russian Navy.

The Navy has plans to build a total of eight Borey-class submarines by 2020.

Alexander Nevsky is the second Borey-class submarine. The Sevmash shipyard has been conducting trials of the boat since 2012. A Bulava ballistic missile will be test-launched from the submarine in the summer, the report said.

The first, the Yury Dolgoruky, entered service with the Northern Fleet in January, and the third, the Vladimir Monomakh, was floated out last December and will start trials in the White Sea in June, it said.

Construction of two more Borey-class Project 955A submarines - the Alexander Suvorov and the Mikhail Kutuzov, will begin this year at the Sevmash shipyard, it added.