Russia spent $5 billion and 25 years repairing the cruiser Admiral Nakhimov

The largest surface combat ship of the Russian Federation, which has been under repair for most of its existence, has put to sea.

The heavy nuclear missile cruiser of the project 1144 “Orlan” “Admiral Nakhimov” made its first trip to sea after completing a protracted modernization that lasted almost a quarter of a century. This is written by “Militarnyi”.

During this time, the completion dates of the work were postponed at least six times, and the total costs reached more than 200 billion rubles – about 5 billion dollars.

The ship was installed with new radar systems, an AK-192M 130 mm artillery mount, as well as modern launchers compatible with the Kalibr, Onyx and Tsyrcon hypersonic cruise missiles.

The modernization started back in 1999, but the active phase of work began only in 2013 at the Sevmash enterprise. Since then, the completion of the project has been regularly postponed – first to 2018, and then five more times, until 2025. Despite all efforts, the cruiser was only able to be put to sea in the late summer of 2025.

The cruiser was laid down in 1983 in Leningrad under the name “Kalinin”. In 1992, after the collapse of the USSR, the ship received its current name. Its characteristics – a displacement of over 24 thousand tons, a length of almost 250 meters and a nuclear power plant – make it the largest combat surface ship in the Russian Navy.

Before the modernization, the ship was armed, in particular, with 20 P-700 “Granit” missiles, S-300F, “Osa-MA” and “Kinzhal” air defense systems, torpedo tubes and “Vodopad” anti-submarine complexes.

USM previously reported that Russia has cut its civilian shipbuilding program by 42% in favor of submarines.