In the grayish Horizon of the White Sea, an extensive Gulf of the Barents Sea located on the northwest coast of Russia, has reappeared an old ghost of the cold war: the Admiral Nesta nuclear battle cruise of the Kírov class, which has sailed again after almost three decades tied in the Severodvinsk shipyards for its reform.
The Russian news agency TASS announced on August 18 that the ship began a test phase that will last for months in Arctic waters. Sources of the Naval Industry – the Russian Defense Ministry is silent – they specified to the web that the trials will start in the White Sea and continue in the Barents.
The return of the ship should not be understood as a symbolic movement of the Kremlin or as an exercise of military nostalgia, but in response to the pulse that has maintained since the beginning of August with the US, after Donald Trump ordered the deployment of. Now, after many months of preparations, in Moscow they have ordered that this zero giant of the Soviet era returns to the sea.
It was in July when the president of Banco VTB (Financial Arm of Moscow in strategic projects) and also of the corporation United Shipbuilding, Andrey Kostin, informed the president of Russia, Vladimir Putin, who after spending 28 years stranded in the shipyards, the repair work had already concluded, so the Admiral Najimov I was ready to sail. Before, in December and in February, the two nuclear reactors of a ship that had not crossed the sea since 1997, but has already been seen, sailing, in publications of social networks.
An endless modernization
The history of Admiral Najímov reflects both the ambition of the Soviet Union and the difficulties that Postroika Russia has to maintain its large -scale projects. The ship, thrown in Leningrad in 1986 and renamed in 1992 as Admiral Najímov in honor of Admiral Pável Najímov, had a fairly short operational life since in 1997 he entered the Sverodvinsk shipyards and there he stayed for almost three decades, waiting for a modernization that never finished.
But he did. In 2013, the Russian Defense Ministry signed a contract valued at 50,000 million rubles with the intention of returning to the service in 2018, but that date was applauded: first to 2020, then 2021 and later at 2024. Meanwhile, the real budget grew at a dizzying pace, year after year, until it was shot up to 200,000 million.
Unlike the remodeling work, which advanced at a fairly irregular rhythm: in 2020 they transferred it from the dry dock to the equipment dock, where the installation of both its systems and the armament was completed; Already in 2021 the reinstallation of the wiring and the energy system could be completed, a key step to launch the on -board equipment. Finally, in December 2024 the first of its nuclear reactors was launched. Two months later, in February 2025, it was the turn of the second, which allowed the ship to return to the sea and start its test phase.
A redesigned arsenal
Modernization has completely transformed the weapons of the admiral Najímov. The 1144.2M project has replaced the old Soviet systems with 10 universal vertical pitchers, with the ability to shoot Kalib and Oniks cruise missiles, in addition to the hypersonic Tsirkón. According to different estimates, the ship could reach up to 176 launch cells, distributed between anti -surface and anti -aircraft missiles.
To this offensive capacity are added renewed defenses, with systems Fort M y Pantsir Mand anti -submarine weapons OTVET y NK Packages. The cruise also maintains the possibility of operating helicopters Ke-27 both from its hangar and its deck, which expands its radius of action in anti -submarine war operations.
With 252 meters of length and a displacement of up to 28,000 tons, the Admiral Nest Figure among the largest surface combat ships, only behind the aircraft carriers. It can reach 32 knots thanks to its two KN-3 nuclear reactors and remain in the sea up to 60 days with a crew greater than 700 sailors.
He Admiral Nest It belongs to the Kírov class, known in Russia as Orlán, conceived in the seventies as an emblem of the Soviet naval power. Of the four units built, two (the Admiral Ushakovy el Admiral Lazarev) have already been unscathed. The Piotr Veliki, the only operation until now, could be withdrawn without going through a complete modernization. Everything indicates that the Najímov will remain as the only unit fully adapted to the demands of the contemporary naval war.
Once the test phase in the White Sea and that of Barents, its destination will be Severomorsk, the main base of the northern fleet. There it will be integrated as a centerpiece of the Russian surface forces in the Arctic, with a strategic deterrence role in front of NATO and for projection of force in open waters.
