In the near future, russia will launch two ships intended for the Black Sea Fleet. These are Taifun small missile ship of Project 22800 Karakurt class and Viktor Velikiy patrol ship of Project 22160 Vasily Bykov class.
This was reported by the Ministry of Defense of the russian federation, noting that the launch will take place on one day in May, without specifying the exact date. This event is to take place at the Zelenodolsk shipyard in Tatarstan near Kazan.
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It should be noted that thanks to the network of rivers and canals, russia has the ability to reinforce and deploy ships of these classes to any fleet and flotilla, except only the Pacific Fleet. In practice, ships from the Zelenodolsk shipyard have been constantly reinforcing russian Black Sea Fleet, Baltic Fleet, and Caspian Flotilla.
But the launch of these ships means the completion of only one phase of work. Then the work will be finished afloat, and then they will be tested. Usually, it takes quite a while between the launch and the actual handover to customer and entry into service for such ships in russia.
For example, Askold ship of the Project 22800 was launched in September 2021 and was at the Zaliv Shipbuilding Yard in occupied Kerch at the time of the attack on November 4, 2023. A period of three years between launching and entering service is common for such ships.
Ships of Project 22160 enter service much faster and it takes less than a year. For instance, Sergey Kotov patrol ship, that was sunk on March 5, 2024, by naval kamikaze drones attack, had been launched in January 2021 and handed over to customer in July 2022.
It should be noted that Taifun small missile ship was laid down in September 2019. As a typical representative of project 22800, it has a standard displacement of 800 tons and a length of 67 meters. The crew consists of 39 people, and the ship's autonomy is 15 days, which is enough to perform tasks in the coastal zone.
The ship's task is to carry out long-range strikes, because the ship has eight 3C14 vertical launching systems for Kalibr and P-800 Oniks cruise missiles. The ship's air defense is the Pantsir-ME air-defence missile and artillery system, and the main radar is the Mineral-M radar with the Sigma combat management system.
Victor Velikiy patrol ship of Project 22160, was laid down in 2016. It is much bigger than the Karakurt project. Its standard displacement is 1500 tons and length is 94 meters. It is not a missile ship. Its crew consists of 28 people and its autonomy is 60 days. A Ka-27 anti-submarine warfare helicopter is to be permanently based on the ship.
The ship's task is patrolling and it is not a carrier of Kalibr and Oniks missiles, although it was supposed to have modular weapons, including 3C14 launchers. But as usual, something went wrong in russia, and russian sailors received a huge so-called patrol boat with minimal amount of weapons. There is one ship's artillery unit and air defense in the form of a sailor with a man-portable air defense system. That is why russians are installing Tor surface-to-air missile system on the helicopter deck of Project 22160 ships.
Earlier Defense Express reported that russians had built special ship for Ka-52 helicopters to cruise in the Sea of Azov.
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