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Retired admiral fears for Russia's navy
Source: Agencies |
November 28, 2009, Saturday
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RUSSIA'S once-mighty navy faces further dramatic decline after 2015, when most Soviet-built ships will have to be mothballed, a retired admiral was quoted as saying yesterday.
The warning follows comments by Russian officials they were planning to buy a French amphibious assault warship able to carry at least a dozen helicopters or to land forces.
Russia currently has no big ship with the power to anchor off coast and deploy troops on land. With the likely decommissioning of other aging warships, distant deployments would be impossible, Vyacheslav Popov said in remarks carried by RIA Novosti news agency.
"If things remain as they are, we will have to mothball most ocean warships by 2015," Popov was quoted as saying. "That will sharply reduce the navy's capability," which he said was now five to six times less than Britain's or France's, and 20-30 times smaller than the Unites States navy's.
Popov and other retired officers have described the Russian navy as being in a pitiful state -- a sharp contrast to the Kremlin's attempts to flex military muscle abroad.
Russia has sent warships to patrol off Somalia, and in 2008 dispatched a squadron for joint maneuvers with the Venezuelan navy.
But Popov, a member of parliament's upper house, warned that the navy would only be capable of acting near Russian shores after 2015.
Only a handful of big surface ships, such as missile cruisers and destroyers, remain seaworthy, after Russia failed to commission new ships and maintain Soviet-built ones in the 1990s.
Russia has been in talks with France about the possible purchase of a Mistral-class assault ship.
The warning follows comments by Russian officials they were planning to buy a French amphibious assault warship able to carry at least a dozen helicopters or to land forces.
Russia currently has no big ship with the power to anchor off coast and deploy troops on land. With the likely decommissioning of other aging warships, distant deployments would be impossible, Vyacheslav Popov said in remarks carried by RIA Novosti news agency.
"If things remain as they are, we will have to mothball most ocean warships by 2015," Popov was quoted as saying. "That will sharply reduce the navy's capability," which he said was now five to six times less than Britain's or France's, and 20-30 times smaller than the Unites States navy's.
Popov and other retired officers have described the Russian navy as being in a pitiful state -- a sharp contrast to the Kremlin's attempts to flex military muscle abroad.
Russia has sent warships to patrol off Somalia, and in 2008 dispatched a squadron for joint maneuvers with the Venezuelan navy.
But Popov, a member of parliament's upper house, warned that the navy would only be capable of acting near Russian shores after 2015.
Only a handful of big surface ships, such as missile cruisers and destroyers, remain seaworthy, after Russia failed to commission new ships and maintain Soviet-built ones in the 1990s.
Russia has been in talks with France about the possible purchase of a Mistral-class assault ship.
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