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Russian Navy Project 23560 Leader-class Nuclear-Powered Destroyers to Slip Behind Schedule

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Naval Forces News - Russia
 
 
 
Russian Navy Project 23560 Leader-class Nuclear-Powered Destroyers to Slip Behind Schedule
 
There have been media reports that the Russian government dropped the future Project 23560 Leader destroyer from its 2025 State Armament Program. Sources in the military shipbuilding industry disproved the news to correspondents of the FlotProm news portal, adding, however, that the funds set aside for the program had been reduced, thus making the program’s implementation bound to slip behind schedule.
     
Future Russian Navy Project 23560 Leader-class Nuclear-Powered Destroyers to Slip Behind ScheduleScale model showing the Project 23560E "Shkval-class" Destroyer (export variant of Leader-class) at Army 2016 exhibition. Twelve ships of the 10,000t "Leader class" are planned to enter service from 2023-25, split between the Northern and Pacific Fleets. They will all be nuclear powered. They will be fitted with the ABM-capable S-500 SAM and Kalibr (SS-N-27) cruise missile.
     
In spite of the postponement of the program, the ship was not struck off the arms acquisition program because she remains relevant, a source close to the Leader program told FlotProm. He added that the schedule would be updated before the end of April.

Another source in the shipbuilding industry said that the development would be delayed due to a reduction in the financing of the shipbuilding industry as a whole despite the sufficient amount of work on the destroyer done by the Severnoye Design Bureau and Krylov State Research Center.
     
Future Russian Navy Project 23560 Leader-class Nuclear-Powered Destroyers to Slip Behind ScheduleScale model showing the Project 23560E "Shkval-class" Destroyer (export variant of Leader-class) at Army 2016 exhibition. Twelve ships of the 10,000t "Leader class" are planned to enter service from 2023-25, split between the Northern and Pacific Fleets. They will all be nuclear powered. They will be fitted with the ABM-capable S-500 SAM and Kalibr (SS-N-27) cruise missile.
     
"We continue our work, but its outcome is directly hinged on the funding. You cannot do much, if you pay out of pocket," he explained.

The third source of FlotProm concurred: "The Leader is on the shipbuilding program, and some money has been allocated to support it as part of the state armament program. Let us wait for the money. The design and construction will continue when the leadership gives the nod."

The Project 23560 sophisticated destroyer is expected to replace the Project 956 (NATO reporting names: Sovremennyy-class) and Project 1155 (Udaloy-class) warships that make up the backbone of the Russian Navy’s oceangoing surface combatant forces. The future destroyer is to be powered by a nuclear propulsion plant. The Leader will carry the Kalibr (SS-N-27 Sizzler) antiship and Oniks (SS-N-26 Strobile) land-attack missile systems or their versions as well as a ship-based variant of the S-500 surface-to-air missile system with the antimissile capability.

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