The Russian Navy will receive an ice-class patrol ship, The Ivan Papanin (Project 23550) by the end of 2024, the Navy’s commander-in-chief, Admiral Nikolay Yevmenov, said while inspecting the ship being built at the Admiralty Shipyards in St. Petersburg.The Admiralty Shipyards plans to transfer the patrol ship to the Russian Navy by the end of 2024. Currently the ship is undergoing mooring trials. Factory sea trials are scheduled for April. At present, the Navy’s Joint Training Center is instructing the crew, which will board the ship in March,” the Russian Defense Ministry quotes Yevmenov as saying.
The Ivan Papanin will effectively perform tasks as part of groups and detachments of ships to ensure security in the Arctic regions.
“The ship has unlimited seaworthiness and a long cruising range. It carries modern equipment and armaments required for coping with the assigned tasks,” Yevmenov added.
He heard reports from the shipyards’ management on the serial construction of non-nuclear submarines and ice-class surface ships in line with the plans for further equipping the fleet.
In October 2023, a TASS source close to the defense-industrial complex said that the first combat icebreaker The Ivan Papanin (of Project 23550 Arktika) was being prepared for factory sea trials.
Project 23350 ships
Project 23350 ships are built both for the Russian Navy and for marine Border Guard units.
They are also called multifunctional ice-class ships with the ability to overcome 1.7-meter-thick ice.
The ship’s configuration meant for the Russian Navy includes a 76.2-millimeter artillery piece and eight Kalibr-K cruise missiles and/or Uran anti-ship missiles in containers.
The Ivan Papanin’s keel-laying ceremony was on April 19, 2017. Its handover to the fleet was originally planned for the end of 2023. On October 25, 2019, the ship was launched. The finishing touches to it were put when it was already afloat. It was scheduled to begin mooring trials at the end of 2022 and factory sea trials in the third quarter of 2023.