Few months after Ukrainians sabotaged sister vessel, new Russian minesweepers prepare to sail to Arctic base
A fleet of new-generation minesweeper will be based in Polyarny, the navy town in the Kola Peninsula.
The Afanasii Ivannikov and Polyarny will be the first minesweepers of the Aleksandrit class (Project 12700) that become part of the Northern Fleet, Russia’s most potent naval force.
The Afanasii Ivannikov is expected to sail from the shipyard in St. Petersburg to the Kola Peninsula in the course of 2025. The Polyarny is likely to follow shortly after.
The latter was put on the water in the Sredne-Nevsky Shipyard in late April.
The two ships are the 9th and 10th of the class. The remaining sister ships are part of Russia’s Pacific, Baltic and Black Sea fleet.
Among them is the Aleksandr Obukhov, which in October 2024 was attacked by the Ukrainian special services.
According to the Ukrainians, the ship was ‘disabled’ in the attack. While moored in Baltiisk, the navy base in Kaliningrad, the Ukrainians managed to damage the ship’s engine.
"The Obukhov choked,” the Ukrainian military intelligence service informed on Telegram.
“The ship, which was based in the city of Baltiysk and supposed to go on combat duty, was severely damaged - water got into the engine due to a mysterious hole in the gas duct: "The Obukhov choked.”
The damage to the ship was substantial, the Ukrainians explained.
“Now the Russian minesweeper is undergoing major repairs, and this could prove to be a serious problem - a damaged M-503 engine is a scarce commodity. Repairing a key installation on a ship is technically difficult and expensive,” they reported.
According to the Russian Navy, the new minesweepers are unique because of their major hulls of monolithic glass fiber built with vacuum infusion.
The ships will help the Navy combat sea mines with the use of various minesweeping gear, as well as remotely operated and autonomous underwater tools, the Navy representatives say.
The Aleksandrit-class ship have a deadweight of 800 tons, a length of 61 meters and a crew of 41. A total of four ships of the class are planned built for the Northern Fleet. They are likely to be based in Polyarny.
