Surface Forces: Decline of the Northern Fleet
Ezoic
April 1, 2025: The Northern Fleet, based in northwest Russia’s Murmansk region and the Kola Peninsula, has a problem. Lacking enough resources to both maintain and operate its ships, the fleet has fallen into disrepair. Commercial satellite photos show ships in disarray and idle. In effect, the Northern Fleet has ceased to function. The best example of this is the continued failure to get aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov and the battle cruiser Admiral Nakhimov operational. The nuclear-powered Nakhimov is a 28,000-ton battlecruiser that entered service in 1988. After the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, the naval budget was slashed to a subsistence level. The Nakhimov was scheduled to start a five year refit and upgrade in 1997. As of 2025 the rehab is still not finished and may not be for a few more years, or even never.
Since 2022 the war in Ukraine has been absorbing most of Russia’s military budget. Worse, the Ukrainians destroyed the Black Sea fleet with airborne and naval drones. The few surviving ships fled to the Sea of Azov, a branch of the Black Sea in the northeast, 1,300 kilometers from Crimea, where a few Russian ports and garrisons held out against the encroaching Ukrainian forces. The Russians are under fire from cruise missiles and drones, and escape by sea is difficult because of the Ukrainian drones patrolling the air and able to direct naval drones against any Russian s
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