Russia Floats Out Yasen-M Submarine Ulyanovsk
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- Sevmash shipyard floated out the Project 885M (Yasen-M) submarine Ulyanovsk at Severodvinsk on July 28, 2026, marking completion of hull construction and the start of outfitting, mooring trials, and sea trials.
- Russian Navy Commander-in-Chief Admiral Aleksandr Moiseyev said Ulyanovsk is intended to join the Northern Fleet after completion of trials, with Sevmash Director General Mikhail Budnichenko targeting delivery in December 2027.
- Ulyanovsk is the sixth Yasen-M boat to complete its slipway construction phase; four Yasen-M hulls — Kazan, Novosibirsk, Krasnoyarsk and Arkhangelsk — are already in naval service alongside the original Severodvinsk, which commissioned in 2014.
- Sevmash laid down Murmansk in June 2026 as the ninth Yasen-M in the wider series, with several more Yasen-M submarines still under construction at the yard.
- The Yasen-M design carries heavyweight torpedo tubes and vertical launch systems for Kalibr and P-800 Oniks cruise missiles, and Russian officials have publicly linked the class to the Tsirkon hypersonic missile programme.
- The float-out ceremony was attended by Deputy Prime Minister Yuri Trutnev and representatives of the Malakhit Design Bureau, the submarine's designer.
Why it matters: Ulyanovsk's float-out keeps Sevmash on track to add a sixth Yasen-M to a class designed to replace multiple legacy Russian attack submarines and extend Northern Fleet long-range strike and anti-submarine reach in the Arctic and North Atlantic approaches by late 2027.
