MOSCOW -- Russia will launch a new frigate in the coming months.
Speaking to state-owned media outlet TASS Russian News Agency, the general director of the Severnaya Verf shipyard, Igor Ponomarev, said that the Project 22350 frigate Admiral Golovko should be launched before July 1 of this year. This frigate -- the third in the class -- is the first of the Project 22350 frigates to have a Russian-made propulsion system.
United Engine Corporation has said that the Admiral Golovko's gas turbine engine has been completed and delivered to Severnaya Verf for installation onto the frigate.
It is expected that Admiral Golovko will enter service in 2021, nine years after it was first laid down.
The first two frigates in the class, Admiral Gorshkov and Admiral Kasatonov, utilize Ukrainian-supplied gas turbine engines. Subsequent frigates in the class were supposed to use those propulsion systems as well, but the collapse of political relations between Kiev and Moscow in 2014 led to Ukraine canceling most cooperation between its defense industry and Russia's industry. As a result, the Russian Navy had to turn to the local industry to produce an equivalent engine for the Project 22350 frigates.
Admiral Gorshkov was commissioned into service in 2018. Admiral Kasatonov, meanwhile, is completing its final testing. It had been scheduled to enter service late last year, but storms at sea prevented the vessel from finishing its testing program. Earlier in February, the press service of the Northern Fleet said that the frigate had conducted a test-firing of its Poliment-Redut air-defense system.
Admiral Kasatonov should be ready for commissioning later this year, though a date has not been specified.
Several more frigates of Project 22350 are being worked on, which like the Admiral Golovko will utilize Russian-made propulsion systems. The Russian Navy is also planning to reach upgraded models -- dubbed the 'Super Gorshkov' -- in the future, though that modernized project is still in the design phase.
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