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Russian Navy’s latest nuclear-powered sub to test-deploy to sea for first time

In June, the up-to-date nuclear-powered submarine Knyaz Oleg will be tested on the float

Sevmash Shipyard Sergei Bobylev/TASS

Sevmash Shipyard

© Sergei Bobylev/TASS

MOSCOW, May 25. /TASS/. The advanced Project 955A (Borei-A) nuclear-powered missile-carrying submarine Knyaz Oleg will test-deploy to the sea for the first time in early June, a source in the domestic defense industry told TASS on Tuesday.

"Under the plans as of today, the Knyaz Oleg will deploy to the sea for trials for the first time at the beginning of June," the source said, specifying that the plans might change.

The press office of the Sevmash Shipyard (part of the United Shipbuilding Corporation) where submarines of this series are under construction declined to comment on the source’s information.

The previous plans envisaged that the Project 955A first serial-produced missile-carrying submarine Knyaz Oleg would enter service with the Navy by Russia’s Navy Day that will be celebrated on July 25 this year.

The TASS source presumed that the sub was unlikely to enter service with the Navy by that time as the strategic underwater cruiser had to undergo a program of shipbuilders’ sea and state trials and, in particular, test-launch a Bulava intercontinental ballistic missile from the Barents Sea from its submerged position against a target at the Kura proving ground on the Kamchatka Peninsula in the Russian Far East.

The Russian Navy currently operates four Project 955/Project 955A strategic missile-carrying submarines. Apart from the Knyaz Oleg, three more Project 955A submarines are at various stages of their construction at the Sevmash Shipyard. Each of the Project 955/Project 955A submarines carries 16 Bulava ICBMs. Russian Navy Commander-in-Chief Admiral Nikolai Yevmenov earlier told the Defense Ministry’s Krasnaya Zvezda newspaper that the Navy would get the Borei-A-class strategic nuclear-powered missile-carrying submarine Knyaz Oleg by the end of 2021.

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