Russia's submarine fleet is in critical condition and calls for renewal. The president's words raise expectations for an early change.

Submarines play a special role in Russia's navy. In the late 1950s, following the death of Josef Stalin, the new Soviet leaders opted for a nuclear missile-equipped submarine fleet, and now it forms the core of the navy's might.

However, now a drastic cut in the number of warships, coupled with the freezing of construction of new units -- only ship construction projects already started were completed -- has led to a situation in which Russia's submarine fleet is now facing the retirement of many vessels because of age.

The construction of new submarines, which has resumed in recent years, unfortunately is outpaced by the decommission rate of outdated vessels.

Medvedev made special mention of nuclear-powered submarines equipped with cruise missiles plus multirole submarines. These classes of boats have suffered the heaviest cuts in the previous years, and while Project 955 submarines are now being built for strategic forces, the situation with cruise-missile and multirole submarines is more disquieting.

Although Project 885 cruise-missile submarines -- the first of them was named Severodvinsk -- and later between one and three sister ships -- according to various sources -- began to be built, so far not even the first one has joined the Russian navy.

Many reasons are cited, including one that the design was raw and needed updating when construction began. The fact, however, is that no submarine is yet commissioned, and eight Project 949A submarines, built in the 1980s and 1990s, make up the force intended to confront aircraft carriers. These are excellent vessels, loved by their crews, and boast high-performance characteristics, but they are all slowly aging.

The situation with multirole submarines is even worse. No new vessels designed to engage hostile submarines, surface ships and to hit shore-based targets with strategic cruise missiles are under construction. At the moment, the Russian navy has 19 boats of this class, of three projects: 671RTMK -- four units; 945/945A -- three units; and 971 -- 12 units.

Most of these submarines were built in the late 1980s to mid-1990s. They can still be considered modern, but the end of their service life is not far off. Some of the shipbuilding design bureaus are known to be developing new multirole projects, but specifics about dates and specifications are not reported.

How many cruise-missile and multirole submarines does the Russian navy need? Estimates vary, but the figure of 30 to 40 non-strategic submarines is considered optimal. At least 20 non-strategic nuclear submarines need to be constructed to maintain the strength of the submarine branch at the required level, considering that about half of the 27 cruise-missile and multirole submarines currently in service will retire after reaching the end of their service lives.

In theory, such rates are not too demanding: Russia has several shipyards that can build submarines at Sevmash, Admiralty Wharves, Komsomolsk and even Red Sormovo, which have the necessary experience.

The real problems lie elsewhere: in cooperating enterprises and, most important of all, in personnel, whose numbers and training quality have been drastically reduced. It is to be hoped that all these problems will be solved, and soon.

(Ilya Kramnik is a military correspondent for RIA Novosti. This article is reprinted by permission of RIA Novosti. The opinions expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.)

(United Press International's "Outside View" commentaries are written by outside contributors who specialize in a variety of important issues. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of United Press International. In the interests of creating an open forum, original submissions are invited.)

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