Eye on the Russian Navy

Admiral Ulrich will be taking a cruise aboard the nuclear powered battlecruiser Pyotr Veliky (Peter the Great) this Sunday. I won't lie, I'd like to take that gig, to see up close and personal the pride of the Russian Navy, the symbol of the power of the former Soviet Union. From RIA Novosti:

Admiral Henry G. Ulrich, commander, U.S. Naval Forces Europe, will visit a Russian nuclear powered missile carrying submarine and heavy missile cruiser, the Defense Ministry said Thursday.

A U.S. military delegation, led by Adm. Henry G. Ulrich, will visit the Northern Fleet July 28-30.

"Adm. Ulrich will meet with Northern Fleet Commander Adm. Vladimir Vysotsky and Murmansk Governor Yury Yevdokimov. Then he will visit the Yekaterinburg nuclear powered submarine," the Defense Ministry said in a press release posted on its official Web site.

That submarine will be a Delta IV, as the Russian Navy tries to convince Ulrich the Russians still have a strategic nuclear deterrence capability at sea. While he is there, maybe Adm. Ulrich can ask the Russians about their nuclear submarine that blew up this morning.

A surge in air pressure damaged a ballast tank on a Russian nuclear submarine during repairs but the incident was minor, Interfax news agency quoted a navy spokesman as saying on Friday.

...

Russian navy spokesman Igor Dygalo said there was no explosion and no one was hurt in the incident at a dockyard in the White Sea port of Severodvinsk.

"The management of the (dockyard) ... considers the accident as minor," Interfax quoted Dygalo as saying. He said the damaged cistern will be soon repaired.

Shipyard accidents happen, and Russian submarine accidents happen. It is easy for Reuters to take a cheap shot at the Russian submarine community because it has a fairly public history of problems, but this type of thing isn't in the same category of say the Kursk incident. Still, the political embarrassment probably stings Putin, on the weekend before the Ulrich visit too, to me pointing out that irony is worth a cheap shot.

RIA Novosti is also running another story of interest, but with the source being Kanwa I'm almost tempted to chalk it up as unlikely. However, this does match some of what has been mentioned happening behind the scenes on other blogs.

Kanwa, a Hong Kong defense news agency, said Friday purchases by China of Russian aircraft carrier components suggested that Beijing was planning to build one or two aircraft carriers, possibly by 2015.

The agency cited a senior source in the Russian Navy, saying that Russia and China have an agreement to purchase four deck landing systems capable of handling heavy deck-based fighters such as the Su-33 Flanker.

Kanwa experts suggested that one landing system would be studied and copied, and another would be installed on the Varyag, a Soviet-made carrier, which was bought incomplete from Ukraine for $20 million in 1998 by a Macao tourist agency.

There has been a lot of speculation regarding what China intends to do with the Varyag, or whether (and even if or when) China plans to build an aircraft carrier. Buying deck landing system components, which is a fairly general description, would be noteworthy. One thing is certain, the US has no plans to help China build an aircraft carrier, and Russia is part of the aircraft carrier program for India, so Russia is the most likely place China will turn for technical assistance. The story speculates the aircraft carrier announcement from China won't come until after the Olympics of 08. That has been speculated by the DoD, but also Japan and Taiwan.

Either way, this potential use of the Varyag is something I hadn't seen before, so I thought it noteworthy enough to share for others who enjoy watching the saga unfold. Guess we will know soon enough.