Decommissioning Awaits Akula Subs

By Simon Saradzhyan and Oksana Yablokova

Staff Writer

Published: May 25, 2004 (Issue # 971)

MOSCOW - Navy chief Vladimir Kuroyedov has ordered the decommissioning of an entire class of strategic nuclear submarines despite proposals to modernize their armament systems after at least two failed missile launches, a senior commander said Monday.

"One could say that we have decommissioned an entire series of submarines ... that could have continued to serve [the Navy]," said Admiral Gennady Suchkov, who was recently suspended from his post as the head of the Navy's Northern Fleet, Interfax reported.

At issue are the huge Akula class submarines, which Suchkov described as the Navy's "most powerful" vessels.

Kuroyedov ordered the decommissioning after the abortive launches of ballistic missiles from Northern Fleet submarines during a strategic war game earlier this year, Suchkov said in a separate interview published in Novaya Gazeta on Monday.

The Navy Command was swift to deny the allegations by Suchkov, who has engaged in a mudslinging fight with Kuroyedov after his suspension over the sinking of a decommissioned diesel submarine last August, which killed nine men.

Navy spokesman Igor Dygalo said the Akula class "will continue to exist as it has existed, fulfilling the entire range of goals it has been tasked with," Interfax reported.

Dygalo went on to accuse Suchkov of divulging state secrets about the armaments of Akula submarines, which have a displacement of some 25,000 metric tons and are armed with 20 intercontinental ballistic missiles.

Suchkov told Novaya Gazeta that Kuroyedov issued an order on April 29 to decommission the Akula class after the launch failures in February. The Novomoskovsk submarine failed to launch an RSM-54 missile in the Barents Sea on Feb.17. Then on Feb. 18 a similar missile was destroyed in flight after veering off the planned trajectory shortly after launch from the Karelia submarine. The failures were caused by a faulty navigation system in one case and a glitch in the control system in another, Kommersant reported earlier this year.

The Novomoskovsk and the Karelia belong to the Delphin class, however, and are armed with RSM-52 sea-launched ballistic missiles.

It was unclear Monday how the abortive launches of RSM-54s from Delphin class submarines could have prompted Kuroyedov to order the decommissioning of a different class of submarines armed with different missiles.

Ivan Safranchuk, head of the Moscow office of the Washington-based Center for Defense Information, said Suchkov's attempt to link the decommissioning of Akula submarines with the abortive launches of a different type of missile from Delfin submarines "appears to be illogical."

He noted that the Navy has been retiring Akula submarines for some time.