New minesweepers coming to Northern Fleet
Three ships of Russia's new class of minesweepers are being built for Arctic waters.
Shipbuilders at the Sredne-Nevsky yard in St.Petersburg this week laid the keel of the last of four projected minesweepers of the Aleksandrit class (project 12700). The vessel that will be named Dmitry Lysov after the ship commander that lost his life in a German submarine attack during Second World War, is to be handed over to the Northern Fleet in 2026.
The Dmitry Lysov is the 11th Aleksandrit-class ship built for the Navy, and the third for the Northern Fleet.
The first of the Northern Fleet vessels, the Afanasii Ivannikov, is to be ready for sailing in the course of 2024. The second ship is named Polyarny and will enter service in 2025.
According to the Navy, the new minesweepers are unique because of their major hulls of monolithic glass fiber built with vacuum infusion.
The ships will help the Navy combat sea mines with the use of various minesweeping gear, as well as remotely operated and autonomous underwater tools, the Navy representatives say.
The Aleksandrit-class ship have a deadweight of 800 tons, a length of 61 meters and a crew of 41. The three new ships will have Severomorsk and other Northern Fleet towns as their home bases.
