Russian navy to receive new warships

Russian shipbuilders will continue to build Project 18280 communication ships for the Russian Navy. OJSC Severnaya Verf (Northern Wharf) and the Russian Defense Ministry have signed a contract to build a Yuri Ivanov-type first communication ship. Russian shipbuilders began to fulfil the new contract. The deadline of construction work for the warship was set at 2016, Severnaya Verf Director General Aleksander Ushakov told Itar-Tass. He was participating in an opening ceremony of the 12th international exhibition and conference on civil shipbuilding, shipping, ports and offshore energy NEVA-2013. More than 700 companies from 40 countries put on display different types of equipment, new developments in technologies and the orts and ships projects at the St. Petersburg exhibition complex LENEXPO. The head Yuri Ivanov ship will be set afloat on September 30, Ushakov said. The communication ship Yuri Ivanov is an absolutely new ship for the Russian Navy, which will surpass considerably similar ships of previous generations by her tactical and technical features. This warship is mainly characteristic of multi-functionality, the high level of automation and the integration of the onboard systems. The ship has a water displacement of about 4,000 tonnes and can sail for no less than 8,000 nautical miles. This will be the largest Russian ship of this class. The ship is named after Vice-Admiral Yuri Vasilyevich Ivanov (1920-1990), who had made a tangible contribution in the creation and development of the permanently operating intelligence of the Russian Navy. Severnaya Verf is named as the only supplier of Project 18280 communication ships for the Russian Navy. A ceremony to lay the first serial communication ship is scheduled for November 14, 2013. The chief commander of the Russian Navy issued an order to name her as Ivan Khurs.