Russia’s Modernized Nuclear Battlecruiser Finally Powers Up Its Reactors: Report

The hugely delayed effort to return the Russian Navy’s nuclear-powered battlecruiser Admiral Nakhimov to service is finally yielding some tangible results, according to Russian reports. Russian state media states that the 28,000-ton battlecruiser’s two nuclear reactors are now online, with claims that the warship should go back to sea for trials starting this summer. It remains to be seen whether that timeline proves anywhere remotely accurate, with the warship’s return to service having been delayed multiple times in the past.

“Last Sunday, the second nuclear reactor was physically launched on the Admiral Nakhimov cruiser,” an unnamed source in Russia’s defense-industrial complex told the state-run TASS news agency. The same outlet reports that the warship’s first reactor went online at the end of December 2024.

“The consecutive physical launch of the cruiser’s two reactors demonstrates the readiness of the entire nuclear powerplant of the ship for operation in all modes,” TASS reported today, noting that the Admiral Nakhimov is currently in the Sevmash shipyard in the port city of Severodvinsk on the White Sea.

First launched in 1986, the Admiral Nakhimov is part of the class of warships known in Russia as the Project 11442, which is codenamed Kirov class by NATO. In its modernized form, the battlecruiser has the revised designation Project 11442M.

For years, the Admiral Nakhimov was in dry dock undergoing a deep refit, with the original promise being that the warship would eventually emerge as basically new, with a whole range of new weapons and sensors. While those ambitions have been scaled back, adding another Kirov class vessel to the Russian Navy would be a powerful statement, both in terms of capabilities and, more significantly, prestige.

Currently, the Russian Navy operates a single Kirov class battlecruiser, the Pyotr Veliky (Peter the Great), which serves with the Northern Fleet having undergone only minor modernization. As a result, it still relies primarily on its Soviet-era weapons and sensors. At one time, it was planned that the Pyotr Veliky would undergo the same in-depth rework as the Admiral Nakhimov, once the work on the latter had been completed. The status of those plans is now very uncertain, with reports that the Russian Navy may retire the battlecruiser altogether and concentrate on the Admiral Ushakov.

#NavalNews SEVMASH shipyard continues upgrading the Project 11442/Kirov class heavy nuclear-powered missile cruiser Admiral Nakhimov (ex. Kalinin) to Project 11442M mod.
I wonder when (and if) this decades long upgrade saga will end.
Video released in November 2022 by SEVMASH. pic.twitter.com/T2zqFxDaNn

— Saturnax

(@Saturnax1) December 12, 2022

Two earlier hulls, the Admiral Ushakov and the Admiral Lazarev have been out of service for many years and have since been consigned to scrap.

While there have been many interruptions to the effort to get the Admiral Nakhimov back to operational status — not least the turmoil as a result of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine — it should be recalled that this was never going to be a straightforward undertaking.

After all, the Admiral Nakhimov had sat idle for over a decade in the frigid White Sea, with work only really starting to progress in 2014. Since then, the planned delivery date has also been pushed back repeatedly. Originally the project was going to be completed around 2018. Then it was pushed back to 2019, and then 2020. As of 2017, TASS was reporting that work on the battlecruiser should be completed by 2021. Then, in 2021, it was reported that the warship wouldn’t return to service before 2023, while in 2022 the Sevmash shipyard stated that service re-entry had now been pushed back to 2024.

It’s certainly not the case that the shipyard has been idle, however.

Previous images from Severodvinsk have shown huge portions of the warship entirely gutted, with the expectation that they will accommodate new weapons and sensors.

The ambition of thoroughly remodeling the battlecruiser has certainly been evident, although it remains to be seen exactly how thorough this has been, once the warship finally goes back to sea.

Originally, the refit was set to provide the Admiral Nakhimov with no fewer than 174 vertical launch tubes — which would provide it with more than any other surface combatant or submarine in the world. Plans called for 80 of these tubes to accommodate various modern Russian cruise missiles, including the subsonic Kalibr, the supersonic Oniks, and supposedly the hypersonic Zircon.

As far as Russia has claimed, Zircon has to date only been deployed on Russian Navy Admiral Gorshkov class frigates, although there is compelling evidence that the missile has also been combat tested in Ukraine. Previously, there were public announcements that the Kirov class would be the first operational launch platform for the hypersonic weapon, although any such plans would have been superseded by the delays with the modernization of the Admiral Nakhimov.

Meanwhile, for air defense, other tubes would reportedly be filled with surface-to-air missiles associated with the S-300FM Fort system, derived from the land-based S-300 system. While these were part of the previous armament, they would have been bolstered by eight Pantsir-M combined gun/missile systems for short-range air defense. Other reports in the past have suggested that missiles from the land-based S-400 air defense system may be incorporated, as a further evolution of the S-300FM, which would provide a more robust anti-ballistic missile capability.

Alongside these new weapons, the Admiral Nakhimov was at one time set to have almost every item of combat-related equipment replaced with more modern successors as part of a wide-ranging systems overhaul.

A video gives some idea as to how extensive the work on the Admiral Nakhimov has been (starts at 4:45):

If the Admiral Nakhimov does emerge with the promised full set of new weapons and sensors — and that’s a big question — it will provide the Russian Navy with its most powerful surface combatant. The modernized warship — together with the less-capable Pyotr Veliky — will then be available as the centerpieces of Russian flotillas. Their value will be greater since the prospect of the aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov returning to service — at least, any time soon — remains unclear.

With the Russian Defense Ministry meanwhile prioritizing the war in Ukraine, as well as modernization of the strategic arsenal, the Russian Navy may well consider itself lucky to be able to put a major surface combatant into service, albeit a reworked one. This is especially relevant since plans to develop a new class of ‘super-destroyer’ have long since been shelved, with current construction programs focusing on more modest frigates and corvettes, as well as new-generation submarines.

It’s worth noting that the Kirov class represents the last nuclear-powered surface combatant in service anywhere in the world, with the U.S. Navy having retired the last of its nuclear-powered cruisers in the 1990s, primarily on cost grounds.

Once again, whatever the final configuration of the Admiral Nakhimov once it returns to service, this impressive warship will be a very significant symbol of Russian naval power and one that could potentially serve for many more years to come.

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