According to the Department of Information and Mass Communications of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, on November 1, 2025, in Severodvinsk, under the leadership of the Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation Andrey Belousov, a ceremony was held at the shipbuilding enterprise of JSC Production Association Northern Machine-Building Enterprise (NSR, part of JSC United Shipbuilding Corporation) to remove workshop No. 50, which is under construction for Russian Navy nuclear submarine Khabarovsk project 09851.
The ceremony of decommissioning the Khabarovsk nuclear submarine project 09851 from the boathouse of JSC "Production Association "Northern Machine-Building Enterprise". Severodvinsk, 11/01/2025 (c) United Shipbuilding Corporation JSC
The ceremony was also attended by Admiral Alexander Moiseev, Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Navy, Andrey Puchkov, General Director of the United Shipbuilding Corporation, and Mikhail Budnichenko, General Director of the USC Sevmash enterprise.
In his speech, the Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation, Belousov, called the Khabarovsk a "heavy nuclear missile cruiser," although when the ship was laid down it was called a "large nuclear submarine."
The Khabarovsk nuclear submarine of project 09851 was designed by the Rubin Central Design Bureau of Marine Technology JSC (St. Petersburg, part of the USC) and was officially laid down at the Severodvinsk Nuclear Power Plant on July 27, 2014 in accordance with an undisclosed contract with the Ministry of Defense concluded on June 19, 2012. According to a press release from the Ministry of Defense, the boat is "designed to solve the tasks of the Navy using modern underwater naval weapons, including robotic means for various purposes." In fact, Khabarovsk is the first specially designed carrier of the Poseidon ocean multipurpose system and should become part of the Pacific Fleet.
Khabarovsk is believed to have six 2P39 launchers for carrying and launching 2M39 underwater vehicles of the Poseidon system with a nuclear power plant. The aft part of the project 09851 boat with a propulsion system, rudders and others, judging by the photos of the withdrawal from the boathouse, are almost identical to those of the nuclear-powered strategic missile submarines of the modified project 09552 (project 955A, code "Borey-A").
Earlier, on July 8, 2022, the Russian Navy received the first carrier of the Poseidon ocean multipurpose system, the BS-329 Belgorod special-purpose nuclear submarine of project 09852 (serial number 91664), converted from an unfinished nuclear submarine of project 949A. Since 2012, Belgorod has been completed according to project 09852 and received four 2P39 launchers for carrying and launching 2M39 underwater vehicles of the Poseidon system.
According to the previously published reports of the MT Rubin Central Design Bureau, the Khabarovsk submarine of project 09851 was supposed to be delivered in 2020 under the terms of the contract, but only now the boat has been withdrawn from the NSR boathouse, and, apparently, it can be expected to enter factory sea trials only in 2026.
In 2016, it was reported about the plans of the MT Rubin Central Design Bureau to carry out a design and maintenance work on the construction of the project 09853 order on the NSR, which is presumably a modified (or serial) version of the 09851 boat, but so far there have been no reports about the start of construction of the 09853 boat.
A special base is being built in Kamchatka in Krasheninnikov Bay to base the Project 09851 and 09852 submarines and their Project 20183 support vessel.
As for the state of work on the Poseidon ocean multipurpose system, on October 29, 2025, President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin announced the first test of the Poseidon underwater vehicle with a nuclear power plant turned on. Putin said that "yesterday we conducted another test of another promising complex. This is an underwater unmanned underwater product - Poseidon, also with a nuclear power plant. For the first time, we managed not only to launch it with a launch engine from a carrier submarine, but also to launch a nuclear power plant on which this device has passed a certain amount of time."
The ceremony of decommissioning the Khabarovsk nuclear submarine project 09851 from the boathouse of JSC "Production Association "Northern Machine-Building Enterprise". Severodvinsk, 11/01/2025 (c) United Shipbuilding Corporation JSC, Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation and RIA Novosti
Souvenir ballpoint pens from the simultaneous laying ceremony on July 27, 2014 at the Northern Machine-Building Enterprise Production Association in Severodvinsk of the Khabarovsk nuclear submarine project 09851, the K-571 Krasnoyarsk nuclear submarine (serial number 163) of the modified project 08851 (project 885M; code "Yasen-M") and the nuclear-powered strategic missile submarine K-552 Knyaz Oleg (serial number 205) of the modified project 09552 (project 955A, code "Borey-A"). The last two ships have already been commissioned by the Russian Navy (c) Oleg Kuleshov / kuleshovoleg.livejournal.com
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