MOSCOW, January 31. /TASS/: The delayed repairs of the Black Sea Fleet’s Project 877 diesel-electric submarine Alrosa will continue until the autumn of 2020, a source in Crimean defense circles told TASS on Friday.
"Under the updated plans, the submarine’s technical readiness will be restored in the fourth quarter of this year," the source said.
As was reported earlier, the submarine Alrosa that had waited for its repairs for five years was placed in the dock of the Black Sea Fleet’s 13th Ship Repair Factory in May last year. The stage of the sub’s dock repairs was expected to last four or five months.
After the repairs and the subsequent tests are over, the submarine may be sent to the Baltic Fleet where it will provide support for the trials of submarines and ships being built by the Admiralty and Severnaya Shipyards (part of the United Shipbuilding Corporation).
The Black Sea Fleet’s submarine forces include eight underwater cruisers. Six of them are Project 636.3 diesel-electric submarines that carry Kalibr-PL cruise missiles, of which the sub Krasnodar is currently operating within the Russian Navy’s Mediterranean permanent taskforce. The same-type sub Stary Oskol is undergoing repairs at the Kronstadt Marine Plant.
The Black Sea Fleet is also keeping afloat the submarine Zaporozhye formerly part of the Ukrainian Navy, which it inherited after Crimea’s reintegration with Russia in 2014.
