
The Russian Navy accepted the fifth in a class of advanced nuclear attack submarines that is set to be based near Norway, Moscow announced last week.
Attack boat Arkhangelsk was turned over to the Russian Navy on Dec. 27 in a ceremony at the Sevmash shipyard on the White Sea just south of the Arctic Circle. It’s the fourth of the Yasen-M class that are modified to field a variety of strike weapons and the fifth Yasen overall. Arkhangelsk underwent a series of sea trials starting last year.
In terms of strike weapons, the 13,800-ton Yasen-Ms can field the 1,000-mile range 3M-54 Kalibir NK land attack cruise missile, the P-800 Oniks anti-ship missile and the 3M-22 Zircon hypersonic anti-ship cruise missiles.
Russian Navy submarines equipped with Kalibirs have been high on the list of U.S. and allies undersea threats for several years. Attack boats armed with long-range missiles can hold 75 percent of European capitals at risk from the North Sea.
The expansion of Russian submarine operations in the High North has pushed both the U.S. and NATO allies to pay more attention to the region.

“Russia is planning to expand its fleet of the Yasen-M class to 12 vessels. Half of them could be based in the Northern Fleet. After Arkhangelsk follow the Perm, Ulyanovsk, Voronezh and Vladivostok, all currently under construction at the Sevmash yard in Severodvinsk,” reads a report from The Barents Observer.
Initially, the class was slow to deliver boats with first-in-class Severodvisk taking more than 20 years to deliver from the 1993 start of construction. However, the Russian Navy has worked to cut down on build time starting with the Kazan that delivered in 2021
“The design of the Kazan also evinces a number of evolutionary steps that should allow Russia to cut unit construction costs and build times for future vessels in the class. As such, we might expect future submarines in this class to enter the fleet at a more rapid pace than previously envisioned,” reads a report from RUSI.
In a speech during the ceremony, head of the Russian Navy Adm. Alexander Moiseev spoke about deploying the submarine to the Atlantic and Pacific and touched on Yassen boat Kazan’s visit to Cuba in the summer.
“The fourth modern nuclear submarine with cruise missiles of the Yasen-M family defends the sea borders of our great motherland. The ships of this project successfully carry out tasks in the Pacific and Northern fleet, he said according to a translation of a Russian state media report.
“High results were achieved in fulfilling the task of the navy’s military presence in the world ocean as part of the campaign of the lead ship of project 885M Kazan to the Republic of Cuba this year.”
Transit of Kazan to Cuba, past the East Coast, as part of the largest, most advanced Russian naval action group that has visited the Caribbean in years, USNI News reported at the time.