Two nuclear subs transferred under Arctic ice cap

The subs are the newest in the Russian navy. Both were commissioned in December last year from the Sevmash yard in Severodvinsk and have since sailed the White- and Barents Seas.

Sailing from the Barents Sea under the Arctic ice cap to Kamchatka Peninsula is a distance of 4,000 nautical miles. Both the Northern Fleet and the Pacific Fleet have over the last two weeks participated in Russia’s largest strategic naval exercise since Soviet days. The Ocean-2024 allegedly involved about 400 warships, submarines and support vessels. 

It is the Defense Ministry’s own TV channel Zvezda that first told about the inter-fleet submerged transfer across the top of the world. 

The Krasnoyarsk is the second Yasen-M class multi-purpose submarine to sail for the Pacific Fleet. The first to sail east was Novosibirsk in 2021. Two others, the Severodvinsk and Kazan belongs to the Northern Fleet and are based on the Kola Peninsula. Five more are on different stages of construction at Sevmash and another three are expected to start construction in the next few years. 

Russia’s program to renew its nuclear-powered submarine fleet goes ahead with full speed and is not delayed due to the ongoing war in Ukraine. 

Together with Krasnoyarsk on the inter-fleet transfer was the Imperator Aleksandr III, becoming the fifth Borei-class ballistic missile submarine in the Pacific Fleet. 

The reason why the Pacific Fleet has got a majority of the first post-Soviet generation strategic class of submarines are that the older Delta-III class urgently needed replacement. The Northern Fleet still operates the Delta-IV, a set of submarines that have been upgraded for longer life-time in recent years. 

There is now only one Borei-class submarine with the Northern Fleet, the Yury Dolgorukiy. 

Two of the Delta-IV class subs are currently at the Zvezdochka yard in Severodvinsk undergoing upgrade and change of nuclear fuel elements in the reactors. The two in Severodvinsk are Karelia and Bryansk, while the three still active up north are the Verkhoturye, Novomoskovsk and Tula. 

A Delta-IV submarine in the Barents Sea. Photo: Thomas Nilsen