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Some Russian Submarines Said Mothballed
By VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV, Associated Press Writer, May 24, 2004, 3:17 PM EDTMOSCOW -- A top admiral alleged the chief of Russiaâs navy has decided to mothball its most powerful nuclear submarines after refusing to modernize their missiles. The navy denied it Monday and accused the admiral of divulging state secrets. Adm. Gennady Suchkov, the head of the Northern Fleet, said that Adm. Vladimir Kuroyedov had ordered the navy to decommission the Typhoon-class submarines, depriving Russia of an important component of its strategic nuclear arsenal. "Nuclear weaponry is the only thing that brings respect to our nation," he said in an interview published Monday in the liberal newspaper, Novaya Gazeta.
With a displacement of about 27,500 tons, the Typhoon-class submarines are the worldâs largest. Each is equipped to carry 20 intercontinental ballistic missiles. Suchkov said in separate comments to the Interfax-Military News Agency that the Northern Fleet has three Typhoon-class submarines -- the Arkhangelsk, the Severstal and the Dmitry Donskoi. He said his pleas for modernizing the missiles had fallen on deaf ears, and that only the Severstal carries 10 missiles, while the other two are unarmed.
Suchkov said the navy had refused to earmark about $1.1 million, a sum he said was necessary to upgrade the submarinesâ missiles. Navy spokesman Capt. Igor Dygalo insisted Monday that there are no plans to scrap the Typhoon-class submarines. "They will remain on duty fulfilling their tasks," Dygalo told The Associated Press. He also assailed Suchkov for unveiling what he said was confidential information about the submarinesâ weapons. But Suchkov said he had written a letter to President Vladimir Putin to inform him of Kuroyedovâs plan to mothball the vessels. "I donât understand this decision, because these submarines can remain in service for a long time to come," Suchkov said. The outspoken Suchkov has long been on a collision course with Kuroyedov, the navy chief. Putin suspended Suchkov as the Northern Fleet chief after the August sinking of a decommissioned nuclear submarine, and a military court convicted him last week of negligence that led to the death of nine of the submarineâs 10 crew and gave him a four-year suspended prison sentence. Many in the navy blamed Kuroyedov for the accident and alleged Suchkov had been a scapegoat.
"The most powerful submarines have been taken off-duty," Suchkov told the Interfax-Military News Agency. "And we havenât received new submarines yet." Putin went to sea aboard one of the Typhoon-class submarines, the Arkhangelsk, in February during an exercise of Russiaâs strategic forces. In the course of the maneuvers, Northern Fleet submarines failed to perform missile launches on two consecutive days, tarnishing Putinâs efforts to restore Russiaâs military might. The navy has kept quiet on results of the investigation into the failed launches. Independent observers have blamed the failures on the money crunch that has badly hurt Russian weapons industries and affected the quality of their products. Since the 1991 Soviet collapse, the Russian navy has been plagued by a lack of funds, which prompted it to mothball relatively new ships because it couldnât afford maintenance. Suchkov accused Kuroyedov of favoring one Russian shipyard, the Northern Shipyards, which charges much more for repairs, compared with others. He said one of two destroyers sent to the Northern Shipyards for repairs had instead been disassembled for spare parts, which were later put on a destroyer commissioned by China.
Posted by: Mark Espinola 2004-05-24 |
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