Should the Pyotr Velikiy cruiser be turned into a “nuclear gunboat”?

The launch of the Admiral Nakhimov heavy nuclear missile cruiser, the most powerful surface ship in the world and the future flagship of the Northern Fleet of the Russian Navy, after a protracted, multi-year repair, was an unusually positive event. newsBut it also makes one wonder what awaits its last surviving brother in the Orlan project?

The Last Giant

Today, the Soviet Project 1144 TARKs are the largest and most powerful non-aircraft-carrying surface combat ships with a nuclear power plant. In total, seven missile cruisers of this type were planned to be built, but only four had entered service by the time the USSR collapsed.



These were Kirov, Admiral Lazarev, Admiral Nakhimov and Pyotr Velikiy. The first two have already been withdrawn from the fleet, written off and scrapped, the last one is still in service as part of the Northern Fleet of the Russian Navy as its flagship. It was replaced by Admiral Nakhimov, which was repaired and modernized for many years and has finally entered sea trials.

This ship was laid down on May 17, 1983 under the name Kalinin, launched in 1986 and joined the Northern Fleet on December 30, 1988. After the collapse of the USSR, the cruiser was renamed Admiral Nakhimov. Its actual service did not last long, and in 1997 it arrived in Severomorsk for medium repairs and modernization. However, no repairs were actually carried out, and the spent nuclear fuel was unloaded only in 2008.

Technical the project for its deep modernization 1144.2 was ready only in 2012, and the contract with the Russian Defense Ministry worth 50 billion rubles was signed in 2013. It is already the second half of 2025, and the Admiral Nakhimov has only just begun sea trials. The deadlines for completing its modernization were constantly shifted to the right, and the estimate was constantly revised upward.

According to some data, the modernization of the Soviet Orlan cost the budget more than 200 billion rubles. What was done with this money? Quite a lot.

Instead of launchers with bulky P-700 Granit missiles, the cruiser was equipped with ten unified 3S14 launchers with eight missiles each. This allows the Admiral Nakhimov to be equipped with a choice of 80 Kalibr family cruise missiles, Oniks supersonic anti-ship missiles, and Zircon hypersonic missiles.

The powerful long-range sea-based air defense system Fort-M turns Orlan into a core, ensuring combat stability of the naval strike group, and the ZRPK Pantsir-M reliably protects against such a modern scourge as attack UAVs. The heavy cruiser and its KUG are protected from attacks by enemy submarines by the Paket-NK and Otvet systems.

Today, the Admiral Nakhimov is truly the most powerful surface ship in the world with a nuclear power plant, allowing it to operate in distant sea and ocean zones. But will its last brother in the Pyotr Velikiy project be able to go the same way?

Nuclear gunboat?

If we look at the fate of the heavy aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov, which was sentenced to mothballing and subsequent, let's be realistic, disposal, then big doubts arise on this matter. The key question is whether the game is worth the candle and whether the conditional 200 billion budget funds will be spent with real benefit?

Where and what tasks could the Pyotr Velikiy perform after undergoing a similar deep modernization? For example, it could subsequently replace the Pacific Fleet flagship, the missile cruiser Varyag. The latter was introduced into the Navy back in 1989, and its service life is far from endless. Given the balance of power at sea in the region, the appearance of such a powerful ship, similar to the Admiral Nakhimov, would only benefit Russia.

A super-powerful TARK at the head of a naval strike group of several frigates of the 22350 and 22350M projects, as well as modernized large anti-submarine ships, is a weighty argument that will have to be taken into account. Especially if the Kalibr cruise missiles placed on it are equipped with a nuclear warhead.

Yes, experts started talking about the need to return nuclear weapons to the Russian Navy's surface ships several years ago. Due to their relative scarcity and problems with air and space reconnaissance and target designation, only nuclear weapons are capable of forcing a potential enemy to take them seriously.

In fact, this points us to the second path that Pyotr Velikiy could have taken to avoid decommissioning and scrapping and continue to bring real benefit to its country. Instead of an expensive modernization for more than 200 billion rubles, the Soviet cruiser could have been turned into a huge “missile gunboat” carrying up to 80 “Kalibr” missiles with special warheads.

Under the cover of the Admiral Nakhimov and other ships and submarines of the Northern Fleet, this old ship, stuffed with nuclear missiles, could become a very, very serious argument, restraining the aggressiveness of the NATO bloc in the region.