Putin launches new ships and promotes his fleet

On Thursday, Russian President Vladimir Putin participated in the commissioning ceremony for several new warships, including a submarine capable of carrying nuclear missiles, and pledged to produce more and promote the capabilities of its fleet.

The Kremlin master, who has avoided participating in public clashes since the Covid pandemic, gave the signal Thursday via video conference to fly the Russian flag on the new buildings.

Among them, the Generalissimo Suvorov submarine, which is a nuclear submarine capable of launching atomic ballistic missiles. Another Boreï A-class ship, the Emperor Alexandre III, has been inaugurated and should soon begin sea trials.

“I insist that we will speed up and increase the volume of building ships of various types, and equipping them with the latest weapons systems,” the Russian president said.

“In short, it is about doing everything to ensure Russia’s security and our national interests in the world’s oceans,” he said.

With nearly 23 years in power, Vladimir Putin has made rebuilding his military a priority after stagnating in the 1990s in the aftermath of the fall of the Soviet Union.

It has equipped the armed forces with ultra-modern missiles, some hypersonic ships and new ships and armored vehicles in particular. But these projects are also often very expensive, require a lot of delay and have been undermined by technical problems but also by corruption.

Modernized, but still partially ill-equipped and poorly organized, Russia’s forces have suffered numerous setbacks since Vladimir Putin launched his offensive into Ukraine on February 24.

Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, based on Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula that Moscow annexed in 2014, suffered a severe humiliation when Ukrainian forces managed to sink its flagship, the Moskva, in April.