Support The Moscow Times!

Russia’s Northern Fleet to Get New Anti-Submarine Aircraft

Marina Lystseva / TASS

Russia’s Northern Fleet is set to acquire new anti-submarine aircraft that will be modeled on a late-Soviet passenger plane.

A modified version of the Tupolev-204/214 passenger plane will be the equivalent of U.S. built Boeing P-8 Poseidon that Norway, among other countries, will deploy for surveillance flights over the Barents and Norwegian Seas.

The revamped aircraft will be deployed for surveillance in peacetime, flying maritime operations watching out for enemy submarines and will operate as a sub-hunter carrying torpedoes during a war-time scenario, a source in the Defense Ministry told the pro-Kremlin Izvestia newspaper this week. 

“In peacetime, they will keep enemy submarines away from our shores,” Admiral Valentin Selivanov, former chief of the Navy's General Staff, told Izvestia. 

The Tu-204 is a twin-engine medium-range jet plane designed by the Tupolev design bureau and was originally introduced in 1989 as an alternative to Aeroflot’s better-known Tu-134 and Tu-134 passenger aircraft. The Tu-204 never became popular and production of the plane has been halted for commercial companies, with the last few planes being retired in October 2018 by Russia’s Red Wings Airlines.

Today the plane is still used for special operations by the Rossiya airline, the Roscosmos space agency and the Defense Ministry, as well as other state agencies. 

No time frame for the projected start of operations with the new sub-hunter version of the aircraft has been released. 

Today, the Russian Northern Fleet’s anti-submarine aviation division, flying out from the Kola Peninsula, operates the Illyushin-38 and Tu-142 aircraft as well as the Ka-27 helicopter. Both the Il-38 and the Tu-142 were designed in the 1960s.

“The question of updating the fleet of anti-submarine aircraft has been facing the Navy since the mid-1990s,” said military expert Dmitry Boltenkov to Izvestia. 

… we have a small favor to ask.

As you may have heard, The Moscow Times, an independent news source for over 30 years, has been unjustly branded as a "foreign agent" by the Russian government. This blatant attempt to silence our voice is a direct assault on the integrity of journalism and the values we hold dear.

We, the journalists of The Moscow Times, refuse to be silenced. Our commitment to providing accurate and unbiased reporting on Russia remains unshaken. But we need your help to continue our critical mission.

Your support, no matter how small, makes a world of difference. If you can, please support us monthly starting from just 2. It's quick to set up, and you can be confident that you're making a significant impact every month by supporting open, independent journalism. Thank you.

Continue

Read more