The Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Navy, Admiral Nikolai Evmenov, spoke about plans to create a new domestic advanced naval aircraft-carrying complex.
In an interview with the Krasnaya Zvezda newspaper, he shared how the Russian Navy will develop.
Today, ships of new projects, such as frigates, patrol ships and universal landing ships, which are capable of providing over-the-horizon landing of naval landings and force control at sea, are constantly entering the ship groupings of the far sea zone. In addition, the issue of the feasibility of creating a promising naval aircraft-carrying complex, the use of which will increase the efficiency of solving various operational tasks, has been worked out.
The surface ships of the near sea zone fleet will be modern multi-purpose ships that have strike missile and defensive weapons, as well as the ability to destroy submarines. For example, these are corvettes of the "Steregushchiy" and "Gremyashchiy" types, as well as small missile ships of the "Grad Sviyazhsk" type.
The class of mine defense ships - sea minesweepers, which are created using composite materials and modern means of searching for and destroying mines, will also be developed. For example, these are ships of project 12700 "Alexandrite" - we recently wrote that at the shipyards of the USC laid down the twelfth such ship, and they plan to produce two copies a year.
For now, Russia has only one aircraft-carrying cruiser, "Admiral Kuznetsov", which is currently under repair and modernization in Murmansk at the 35th Ship Repair Plant. It is expected that after replacing all the components, it will last for twenty years. The aircraft carrier should return to the fleet after repairs in the first quarter of 2024. It was commissioned in 1991.
Russian aircraft carrier "Shtorm" - nuclear
New Russian aircraft carriers to support "Admiral Kuznetsov" have been discussed at the highest level since 2017 - then Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said in an interview with Interfax that the Russian defense industry is ready to build a new aircraft carrier for the Navy, if a corresponding decision is made. Later, in an interview with the same publication, representatives of the Krylov State Research Center spoke about their promising project 23000E (code "Shtorm"), which they developed jointly with the Nevsky PKB.
The length of the prospective aircraft carrier was to be 330 meters, width - 40 meters, draft - 11 meters, displacement - about 100 thousand tons. The speed of the aircraft carrier was planned to be up to 30 knots, and the capacity - up to 90 aircraft units, from helicopters to AWACS aircraft. The ship of this project will be able to stay in autonomous navigation for up to 120 days.
The aircraft carrier was planned for both the Russian Navy and for export. And it could work both on organic fuel and on a mixed power plant: nuclear and gas turbine. The cost of the project was not disclosed.
Russian non-nuclear aircraft carrier
In 2019, the Krylov State Research Center presented a new concept of an aircraft carrier. A non-nuclear multi-purpose vessel was presented at the International Naval Salon in St. Petersburg. This project had the following characteristics:
- displacement of 44 thousand tons;
- ability to carry up to 40 aircraft and helicopters;
- ability to carry a certain number of naval versions of the "Okhotnik" type UAV;
- ability to base Russian fifth-generation Su-57 fighters modernized for takeoff and landing on an aircraft carrier.
The construction of such an object was supposed to be completed in five years, the cost of the project was estimated at 200 billion rubles. The developers said that the Russian Ministry of Defense would issue the center a task to develop a technical project in 2023.