SEVERODVINSK (Sputnik) – The first Borei-A-class nuclear submarine cruiser will enter into the Russian Navy’s service in 2018, Rubin shipbuilder General Director Igor Vilnit said Friday.
“The first cruiser from the Borei-A project we plan to hand over to the Navy in two years, in 2018,” Vilnit said during a ceremony on the beginning of the construction of the Imperator Alexander III nuclear submarine in Severodvinsk.
Navy Deputy Commander Vice Adm. Viktor Bursuk said during the ceremony that Borei-A-class submarines would significantly strengthen both the Russian Navy on the whole, and its Pacific Fleet in particular.
Bursuk added that, judging by the pace at which the Borei was being manufactured, it was possible to predict that a total of eight Borei-class nuclear-powered ballistic-missile submarines would be put into the service of the Russian Navy by 2020, as previously planned.