SecondYasen-classSubmarine ‘Kazan’launched
The improved Yasen- class (Project 855M) multipurpose nuclearpowered submarine Kazan was launched at the Sevmash shipyard in Severodvinsk on 31 March 2017, with Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin and Russian Navy Chief Admiral Vladimir Korolyov in attendance at the ceremony. Kazan is the second Project 855 ( Yasen) boat, but has been extensively modified and updated compared to the lead ship of the class, Severodvinsk, which was designed in the 1980s, laid down in 1993, and commissioned only in 2013.
“The launch of an improved Yasen-M advanced multi-role submarine is quite an event for the whole of the country, its armed forces and its Navy. We are working together on a plan approved by the government. We are in the process of creating a submarine group capable of coping with missions around the world and maintaining Russia’s security,” said Admiral Korolyov at the event.
Kazan has been under construction at Sevmash since 2009, and is to be handed over to the Russian Northern Fleet in 2018. A total of seven Yasen- class submarines are to be built by 2023. The class is designed by the Malachite Design Bureau based in Saint Petersburg, with four more 885M boats – Novosibirsk, Krasnoyarsk, Arkhangelsk and Perm – currently under various stages of construction. The seventh submarine of the class will be laid down in the summer of 2017.