- MOSCOW (UPI) -- Russia's
nuclear missile-armed Akula submarines, which were once the pride of the
Soviet navy during a Cold War, will be destroyed under a U.S.-financed
program, Moscow's Novye Izvestia daily newspaper reported Wednesday.
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- Three of the six vessels will be reduced to scrap metal
at the Nerpa shipyard in northwest Russia, the report said.
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- The decision, announced by the Russian navy chiefs, was
largely influenced by the chronic shortage of funds needed to repair the
vessels. The world's biggest submarine, Akula, "The Shark" in
Russian, was designed by the St. Petersburg-based Rubin military design
bureau two decades ago.
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- Then Soviet leader Yuri Andropov took great pride in
the vessel which he considered a fitting response to the Star Wars campaign,
conducted by the Reagan administration.
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- In early 1982, the Dmitry Donskoi flagship was put on
water under the TK-208 coded number. Subsequently, the Sevmash shipbuilding
plant in Severodvinsk manufactured five more vessels that joined the 1st
Submarine Flotilla of the Soviet Union's Northern Fleet.
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- The submarine soon caused great interest in the West
and naval intelligence even gave it a coded name, Typhoon.
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- In June, Russia's Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov visited
Severodvinsk to attend the ceremony of submerging a renovated Dmitry Donskoi
after years of repair and modernization.
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- "The vessel has undergone a deep modernization and
actually been given a new life," the minister said.
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- Indeed, the list of the submarine's technical parameters
looks more than impressive: 571 feet in length; operated by 179 crewmembers;
normal displacement - 28,500 tons, underwater displacement - 49,800 tons;
armed with 20 RSM-52 hard-fuel missiles each of which has 10 separating
warheads.
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- The launching weight of the missile totaled 90.1 tons,
with capability to hit targets at over 10,000 kilometers.
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- The entire missile arsenal can be fired in two launches.
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- Analysts also noted the vessel's remarkable ability to
emerge in completely frozen-over waters, breaking with ease a 2.5 meter,
8.25 feet, layer of ice.
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- The Akula's nuclear missile system is also capable of
hitting as many as 200 targets located over 6,500 sq. kilometers, or 2,600
square miles, of area within four minutes.
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- Due to their size and strategic purposes, six Akulas
had to be stationed at the Nerpichya naval base, which underwent major
reconstruction before hosting the vessels.
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- However, Russia's painful post-Soviet transition to market
economy left the vessels moored in the dockyard for most of the time.
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- The government lacked funding to renovate the subs with
the Dmitry Donskoi waiting for modernization since 1989.
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- According to Novye Izvestia, the recent modernization
program may have also included arming the Dmitry Donskoi with the sophisticated
Bulava-30 missile system.
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- Nevertheless, this week's decision to scrap three Akulas
caused little surprise in Russia and abroad as Moscow is eager to get rid
of its aging nuclear arms arsenal under foreign-sponsored assistance programs.
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- Currently, the United States is sponsoring the program
to scrap all Russia's submarines built under the 667-BDR project.
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- The estimated cost of the program to destroy the 941
project subs such as Akula totals 450 million per year.
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- Recently, Washington and its partners in the group of
seven richest and most industrialized nations agreed to finance a $20-billion
assistance program to help Russia destroy its stockpiles of nuclear and
chemical weapons.
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- Copyright © 2002 United Press International. All
rights reserved.
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