War in Ukraine has put russia in a situation where navy reinforcement has become an issue of utmost importance. Although only the Black Sea fleet and partly the Caspian Sea Flotilla were engaged in the war, the russians have already lost 18 warships and auxiliary ships.
Furthermore, the intent of Sweden and Finland to join NATO requires the Northern Fleet to take the spotlight as the most capable of russian naval forces, though it has always been on the sidelines in terms of firepower and funding. Thus, Kremlin has adopted an ambitious plan to reinforce it's navy. But it only left "on paper" while in reality, the efforts put into this plan are not nearly enough, as follows from the analysis by Jamestown Foundation think tank.
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For starters, russian shipbuilding enterprises have not switched to the extended working hours, despite the Kremlin's claims. And it looks like russian authorities have little interest in how the state-owned United Shipbuilding Corporation had 2022 revenue losses amounted to hundreds of millions of dollars.
Nevertheless, russia wants to "maintain its role as a global actor", Jamestown notes, and project power across all the seas over the world or at least "preserve strategic parity with the United States".
Instead of focusing on local projects, russia's approach leads to its resources spreading too thin among the numerous fleets and shipyards, but in the end, no result is achieved.
The best illustration is the issue with the Admiral Kuznetsov aircraft carrier that is on a permanent repair with deadlines postponed repeatedly.
No less interesting though is the fact that russians bear plans to Modernize two of its nuclear-powered cruisers of the Project 1144 Orlan: namely, the Pyotr Velikiy flagship of the Northern Fleet, and the Admiral Lazarev Kirov-class battlecruiser which is on repair, too, at the Zvyozdochka shipyard.
The terms for the repair of the Admiral Lazarev battlecruiser are as well always postponed, the prospects are unclear, and until the work is finished, the moderation of the Pyotr Velikiy Kirov-class battlecruiser cannot start. But all these aspects do not stop Kremlin from drawing the priorities for navy development.
The russians haven't yet decided whether they want to keep building submarines of the Project 955 Borey and the Project 885 Yasen after 2030. But they still invest resources "just in case", to shorten the production cycle of these nuclear-powered underwater cruisers from 8 to 7 years.
When it comes to conventional shipbuilding, the problems are of the same character. For example, they still haven't decided whether to continue building Project 677 ships despite the failure to make an air-independent engine and resorted to a "classic" diesel-electric one.
Then, russia declares it will continue making Project 22356 "Admiral Gorshkov" fregates despite the problem with producing engines for this ship class: russian industry can only produce two M55R gas turbine engines per year. At this rate, only one the Admiral Gorshkov fregate can be made.
Notably, to solve these problems, Kremlin wants to engage Rosatom, at least as a source of additional funding.
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