Litwin
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Helicopter production has also fallen behind due to those engines also being manufactured in Ukraine. The Su-57 stealth fighter jet is too costly for full production, ....
MOSCOW (Reuters) - President Vladimir Putin calls improving the Russian navy’s combat capabilities a priority. The unfinished husks of three guided-missile frigates that have languished for three years at a Baltic shipyard show that is easier said than done. Earmarked for Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, the frigates fell victim to sanctions imposed by Ukraine in 2014 after Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula, prompting Kyiv to ban the sale of the Ukrainian-made engines needed to propel them. With Moscow unable to quickly build replacement engines for the Admiral Grigorovich-class frigates, construction stopped. Russia is now cutting its losses and selling the three ships to India without engines. The navy’s problems stem largely, but not exclusively, from the Ukrainian sanctions. There are also problems, for different reasons, with new equipment for the army and air force. The picture that emerges is that Russia’s armed forces are not as capable or modern as its annual Red Square military parades suggest and that its ability to project conventional force is more limited too. “You need to always distinguish between reality and the shop window,” said Andrei Frolov, editor-in-chief of Russian magazine Arms Exports. “Red Square is a shop window. It’s like in restaurants in Japan where there are models of the food. What we see on Red Square are models of food, not the food itself.” The program to build Russia’s most advanced stealth frigate, the Admiral Gorshkov-class, has been paralyzed by sanctions — even before the sanctions hit it took 12 years to build the lead ship, which entered service last summer. Russia hopes to add 14 more such ships to its navy, but has no engines for 12 of those vessels. Moscow is trying to develop its own gas turbine engines and its own full-cycle manufacturing base. Ilya Fedorov, Saturn’s then director, said in 2014 he had concerns about costs, and the company failed to deliver the first engines to the navy in 2017. Fedorov told the Russian news agency Interfax at the time that “all our ships run on these turbines, and if we don’t make our own everything will grind to a halt.” Alexei Rakhmanov, head of Russia’s United Shipbuilding Corporation, said in December that the first Russian-made engine should be fitted to the fourth of 14 more planned frigates in the “very nearest future.” Even if that happens, Igor Ponomarev, the head of the St Petersburg shipyard making the new stealth frigates, says that vessel is not due to be ready before the end of 2022. The rest of the program is likely to stretch into the 2030s.
Despite Putin's swagger, Russia struggles to modernize its navy
MOSCOW (Reuters) - President Vladimir Putin calls improving the Russian navy’s combat capabilities a priority. The unfinished husks of three guided-missile frigates that have languished for three years at a Baltic shipyard show that is easier said than done. Earmarked for Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, the frigates fell victim to sanctions imposed by Ukraine in 2014 after Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula, prompting Kyiv to ban the sale of the Ukrainian-made engines needed to propel them. With Moscow unable to quickly build replacement engines for the Admiral Grigorovich-class frigates, construction stopped. Russia is now cutting its losses and selling the three ships to India without engines. The navy’s problems stem largely, but not exclusively, from the Ukrainian sanctions. There are also problems, for different reasons, with new equipment for the army and air force. The picture that emerges is that Russia’s armed forces are not as capable or modern as its annual Red Square military parades suggest and that its ability to project conventional force is more limited too. “You need to always distinguish between reality and the shop window,” said Andrei Frolov, editor-in-chief of Russian magazine Arms Exports. “Red Square is a shop window. It’s like in restaurants in Japan where there are models of the food. What we see on Red Square are models of food, not the food itself.” The program to build Russia’s most advanced stealth frigate, the Admiral Gorshkov-class, has been paralyzed by sanctions — even before the sanctions hit it took 12 years to build the lead ship, which entered service last summer. Russia hopes to add 14 more such ships to its navy, but has no engines for 12 of those vessels. Moscow is trying to develop its own gas turbine engines and its own full-cycle manufacturing base. Ilya Fedorov, Saturn’s then director, said in 2014 he had concerns about costs, and the company failed to deliver the first engines to the navy in 2017. Fedorov told the Russian news agency Interfax at the time that “all our ships run on these turbines, and if we don’t make our own everything will grind to a halt.” Alexei Rakhmanov, head of Russia’s United Shipbuilding Corporation, said in December that the first Russian-made engine should be fitted to the fourth of 14 more planned frigates in the “very nearest future.” Even if that happens, Igor Ponomarev, the head of the St Petersburg shipyard making the new stealth frigates, says that vessel is not due to be ready before the end of 2022. The rest of the program is likely to stretch into the 2030s.
Despite Putin's swagger, Russia struggles to modernize its navy
