Plans to update the Russian fleet until 2038 have faced a serious problem — building ships in Russia is 2.5–3 times more expensive than in China. This was announced by Mikhail Burmistrov, General Director of "INFOLine - Analytics".
According to him, China is the only supplier of some types of ship equipment, offering them at inflated prices due to sanctions risks.
Burmistrov explained that against the background of low labor productivity and a large lag in the level of automation and robotization, as well as the high cost of capital and labor, this makes domestic shipyards uncompetitive.
Therefore, any massive construction of ships in China "can completely bury Russian shipbuilding".
Nadezhda Malysheva, Development Director of the Portnews agency, considers the plans to build 2062 ships and marine equipment by 2038 to be realistic. According to her, the demand for the fleet will be provided by large projects for the extraction and export of raw materials in the Far East and the Arctic, where goods are mainly exported by sea.
However, as of December 2025, contracts have been concluded for only 358 ships. During the year, shipbuilders handed over 71 civilian vessels for various purposes to customers. Contracts for another 79 ships have not been confirmed by customers, and over 1550 ships are a promising need.
The press service of the United Shipbuilding Corporation told "The First Technical" that by 2036 in Russia more than 1.6 thousand units of civil vessels and marine equipment of various types will be built. USC is also carrying out a large-scale modernization of the "Northern Shipyard" in St. Petersburg, where frigates of project 22350 are produced.
