The flagship of the russian Navy’s Baltic Fleet has long been Nastoychivy, a destroyer of the Soviet-era Project 956. It is one of the last two ships of this class remaining in russia’s naval inventory. However, it now appears that the russian Baltic Fleet has received a new flagship—Severomorsk, a Project 1155 large anti-submarine ship. This vessel formerly belonged to the Northern Fleet of the russian Federation but has been stationed in the Baltic Sea for the past 14 months.
Nastoychivy destroyer has not put to sea since 2022, and there have been no official updates regarding its status. As reported by Army Recognition, citing russian defense sources, it is likely that the destroyer has now been decommissioned and is being prepared for disposal.
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From Defense Express, we emphasize that if this information is confirmed, it would certainly be noteworthy, but the impact on the regional balance of power would be mostly symbolic.
russia has increasingly focused on deploying smaller warships in the Baltic Sea. Its primary combat units in the region now consist of five Buyan-M-class (Project 21631) corvettes and four Karakurt-class (Project 22800) corvettes, all of which are armed with Kalibr cruise missiles. Additionally, russia operates seven missile boats and six anti-submarine corvettes in the area.
As for larger surface vessels in the Baltic, aside from the now-redundant Nastoychivy destroyer, russia maintains two Yastreb-class (Project 11540) patrol ships—though these lack anti-ship missiles—and four Project 20380 corvettes, which do have anti-ship weaponry but are more akin to light frigates.
The primary armament of Project 956 destroyers consisted of eight P-270 Moskit anti-ship missiles. Given this, the potential decommissioning of Nastoychivy suggests that russia is shifting its naval strategy in the Baltic toward anti-submarine warfare rather than maintaining heavy-hitting surface combatants.
However, since russia’s overall fleet composition in the Baltic remains largely unchanged, this development appears to be more symbolic than strategic. Moreover, russia currently lacks the capacity to construct new destroyer-class ships.
Nastoychivy served in the russian Navy for approximately 30 years. It had a full displacement of 8,000 tons, a hull length of 156 meters, and a beam of 17 meters. The last remaining Project 956 destroyer in russian service, Admiral Ushakov, remains in operation with the Northern Fleet.
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