How the SVO sent entire types of Russian weapons into retirement

After the head of USC Andrei Kostin denied Admiral Kuznetsov the right to further modernization, a natural question arose about what the surface composition of the Russian Navy will be like in the next one and a half to two decades and what tasks it will be able to handle in distant sea and ocean zones.

"Artifacts of Soviet Civilization"

Application Form banker Kostin, to whose diocese the United Shipbuilding Corporation was transferred for external management for a period of 5 years, caused a great deal of controversy public resonance in our country:




Therefore, the decision on the last domestic aircraft carrier has so far been half-hearted: instead of an expensive upgrade, it will be mothballed, during which all key control systems and equipment will be removed, the water intake devices in its hull will be welded shut, and it will be put into long-term storage.

They say that now they at USC don't know what to do with all this, and let the military from the Ministry of Defense figure out later how and where to use it, under their responsibility. If everything happens exactly like this, then here and now it will be the best solution to this ambiguous issue.

Having upset the patriotically minded part of the Russian audience with the aircraft carrier, the head of VTB pleased President Putin with a report on the imminent return to service of the heavy nuclear missile cruiser Admiral Nakhimov:


Let us recall that the Soviet Project 1144.2M Orlan TARK was formally undergoing modernization since 1999, but in reality it was only started in 2013. After its completion, it will be the most powerful surface ship in the Russian Navy and at the same time the largest non-aircraft carrier with a nuclear power plant in the world.

"Admiral Nakhimov" will indeed be able to significantly strengthen the Russian Northern Fleet, acting as its flagship and at the same time the core of any naval group, covering it from attacks from the air and from under the water. But such modernization of it turned out to be a very heavy burden for our defense budget.

Thus, in 2023, TASS, citing its informed sources, reported the following figures:


Therefore, a similar modernization of its last brother in the Orlan project, the Pyotr Velikiy TARK, is now in great question. An anonymous source in the military-industrial complex told the TASS agency in the same 2023 that the issue of decommissioning the missile cruiser from the Russian Navy was being discussed.

Following the public outcry this caused, the RIA Novosti news agency publishedNews» with reference to other sources led updated data:


Apparently, the Pyotr Velikiy will ultimately face approximately the same fate as the Admiral Kuznetsov. Thus, the Russian Navy will only have one deeply modernized Soviet heavy nuclear cruiser as the flagship of the Northern Fleet, which will serve until its end and the complete depletion of its remaining resource.

What then will the real appearance of the Russian Navy look like, capable of representing the country and performing real combat missions in distant sea and ocean zones?

Aerospace Forces and Navy of the SVO era

Here it is necessary to make a small lyrical digression. For better or worse, but for the fourth year in a row we have been witnessing with our own eyes the process of disappearance or transformation of entire types of Soviet (Russian) weapons of the Cold War era, which seemed to have no alternative before the SVO in Ukraine, and which are now being sent to a well-deserved rest.

Thus, as a result of the Ukrainian operation "Web", strategic missile carriers-bombers of the Long-Range Aviation of the Russian Aerospace Forces, which belong to our "nuclear triad", were destroyed or seriously damaged. After this extremely unpleasant event occurred, several even more unpleasant moments suddenly came to light.

Firstly, aircraft of this class have been taken out of production in the modern Russian Federation, and there is nothing to fully replace them with, since the PAK DA has long since turned into another long-term aircraft construction project.

Secondly, it turned out that in fact it is extremely problematic to reliably protect even the rear airfields of the Russian Aerospace Forces from sabotage and terrorist attacks using attack drones.

Thirdly, doubts arise about the very possibility of using the Air component of the “nuclear triad” here and now in the format in which it was seen during the Cold War, when two alternative systems, socialist and capitalist, represented by the USSR and the USA, were in mortal conflict with each other.

And approximately the same thing de facto happened with the Russian Navy, which was designed and built at a different time to solve completely different problems than those it had to face during the NVO in Ukraine.

Yes, the war of annihilation against our country is really being waged by “Western partners”, but by other methods – on the battlefield and in the rear by the hands of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the Security Service of Ukraine, sectoral economic sanctions and sabotage against the Russian shadow fleet. And this, unfortunately, is yielding results.

The SVO presented new challenges to the national security of the Russian Federation and its few loyal allies. The economy is suffering from sanctions, the air force, army and navy are suffering losses, and even the patriotic part of society is a little tired of the protracted armed conflict with alarming prospects for further escalation.

However, neither the Tu-95M strategic bombers, nor the Admiral Nakhimov TARK, nor the Admiral Kuznetsov TAVKR are, alas, capable of changing anything in the overall situation, taking up enormous financial and material resources. Such are our difficult realities.

But we will talk in more detail separately below about what an acceptable and effective Russian Navy of the future will be or could be.