Missile cruiser Ekaterinburg to be launched soon

The repairs of the nuclear missile submarine of strategic purpose Ekaterinburg have been finished at Zvyozdochka (Little Star) dock of the Russian town of Severodvinsk. The sub that weighs some 13 thousand tons was transported to the graving dock on the special railway, like a tremendous train. Next week the sub will be launched in the dock.

The works on the sub were started on February 17, 1982, it was included in the structure of the Russian navy at the end of 1985. It traveled over 90 thousand miles in the ocean, performed ten deep-water submergences.

The sub performed several unique operations as well, for example the so-called “hippopotamus,” when all 16 missiles are launched under the water at one and the same time. By the way, ecologists say that this submarine became the reason why all starfish died in the White Sea after there was a breakdown with propellant at the end of the 1980s. But this is not really important, since Supreme Commander-in-Chief Vladimir Putin said that such missile cruisers held Russia’s entire naval strategic nuclear force.

However, the president did not wish to say a couple of good words to the residents of Severodvinsk, Putin’s representatives were not noticed at the meeting that was devoted to the completion of the repairing works. People were saying that the president was simply shy: the government promised to fund the defense complex of Severodvinsk properly, but nothing has been received to back up the repairing works of the submarine.

The Ekaterinburg submarine will undergo tests in December, and then it will travel to the north, in the middle of the next year. Maybe, Putin will attend these future events, like it happened last year, when he came to Severodvinsk to celebrate the completion of the Cheetah (Gepard) submarine. Putin ordered to assign some money for Severodvinsk at that time, but as Yury Sivkov (a member of the Federation Council from the Arkhangelsk region) said, the state still owed 542 million rubles for the Cheetah.

Andrey Mikhailov PRAVDA.Ru Severodvinsk

Translated by Dmitry Sudakov