SEVERODVINSK, July 24. /TASS/. The Admiral Nakhimov nuclear-powered missile cruiser is undergoing tests after repair and could soon rejoin the Russian Navy, according to Andrey Kostin, board chairman of the United Shipbuilding Corporation.
Kostin, who is also chief executive of the lender VTB, made the statement at a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
"I believe we are successfully working on the government’s defense contracts. Today you gave the go-ahead to raise the flag on a nuclear-powered missile submarine. In March, the Perm submarine was rolled out of the boathouse. And, of course, a big event for us is the completion of repairs on the battlecruiser Admiral Nakhimov, which is already undergoing tests, and in the near future, as we believe, could go into combat service with the Russian Navy," he said.
The cruiser has been under repair since 1999. In reality, repairs hadn’t started until 2013. The main accomplishment of the modernization is a noticeable increase in the her attack power. According to open sources, the warship will carry, among other things, 10 multipurpose shipboard firing systems armed with eight Kalibr-NK and/or Onyx cruise missiles each.