Translation:Sea trials of the Akademik Gubkin tanker, built at the Zvezda Shipbuilding Complex by order of Rosnefteflot JSC, have begun in Bolshoy Kamen.This was reported on April 24 in the press service of the oil company Rosneft.Akademik Gubkin is the fourth vessel of the Aframax tanker series in the shipyard's portfolio of orders, which was launched.The solemn ceremony of naming the vessel took place as part of the VII Eastern Economic Forum in September 2022.Earlier, the Akademik Gubkin tanker successfully passed mooring trials, during which the on-board systems and equipment were checked and adjusted, the main engine of the tanker was launched, its performance and readiness to go to sea were checked.After that, the tanker was moored off the outfitting embankment, taken out of the shipyard water area and under its own power went to the testing area, within which the speed characteristics of the vessel and its controllability in all operating modes will be tested.
But sometimesseeing is even better than reading. Here is Academic Gubkin in person:
Aframax tankers are large 250 meters long and 114,000 tons displacement vessels. And if first ones of them have been primarily assembled from Chinese and South Korean "legos", the localization of the process at Zvezda shipyard proceeds apace. And, this is how this monstrous wharf looks today.
In this picture alone you can see roughly 400,000 tons of displacement combined being completed. Zvezda's portfolio is huge and you can read some of it on their website in Russian. The scale of Zvezda is absolutely massive but you wouldn't find much about it in Western media.
As you may have guessed it, many in the West follow the constant growth and localization of Zvezda with anxious curiosity. When one has a dry dock which can fit easily two aircraft carriers of Nimitz (or Ford) class (485 meters long, 114 meters wide and 14 meters deep)...
Many in Washington and Tokyo are wondering if those damn Rooskies will begin to build aircraft carriers there. Well, I don't know, but, the rumors started to circulate that Peter the Great will not undergo modernization and will be decommissioned. You may have already guessed who spreads these rumors, but the response from Russian Navy was pretty clear.
Translation:MOSCOW, April 20 - RIA Novosti.The heavy nuclear-powered missile cruiser Pyotr Veliky is not planned to be decommissioned and scrapped, an informed source familiar with the situation in the field of naval planning told RIA Novosti.Earlier, a number of media reported that the issue of withdrawing "Peter the Great" from the combat strength of the fleet is being worked out, due to the fact that the experience of repairing the cruiser of the same class "Admiral Nakhimov" turned out to be very costly."The heavy nuclear missile cruiser Peter the Great is not planned to be decommissioned and scraped. The ship can be put into reserve for subsequent repairs with modernization, this option is being considered," RIA Novosti's interlocutor said.
Guess from three times where this rumor originated. This is the main reason I don't have TG channel and don't read them. Do not forget also that Admiral Kuznetsov is due to rejoin fleet the next year and the crew has been largely formed and new air defense system (newest navalized Pantsirs are being installed) and C4 complex have been completely built anew from ground zero.
We'll see soon enough what it will become after effectively being rebuilt from ground up, including serious update of propulsion. But, once the totality of shipbuilding news from Russia is grasped, one has to admit--not too shabby for a country with "economy in tatters". Here is you Monday shipbuilding primer.
Pat Buchanan, for all my respect for him, shows tiredness and lack of imagination when writes today about this proverbial Suez Moment for the United States. Of course, he is entitled to it and I myself used this expression when writing of America's decline. Pat writes:
That is all true and there is no better eyewitness and chronicler of British imperial demise than Corelli Barnett. But each overstretch, and each decline is different. Pat got one thing right about Soviet demise:
The USSR then disintegrated along ethnic and tribal lines into 15 nations. Its diversity tore the Soviet Union apart.
It wasn't Afghan War which doomed the Soviet Union. But Pat's "history" was always fuzzy, to put it mildly, and he demonstrates it again by presenting this rather bizarre interpretation of it.
Indeed,
NATO was formed and its war guarantees were issued to Western Europe in
1949, seven decades ago. War guarantees to South Korea, Japan, the
Philippines and Australia were all issued from 1950 to 1960. These
commitments to go to war for other nations were issued when Stalin was
in the Kremlin, a 400,000-man Red Army sat on the Elbe in Germany, and
Mao and his madness had just come to power in Peking. How
long must we sustain all these alliances and soldier on in the “forever
wars” of the Middle East? Do we Americans still have the national unity,
sense of purpose, and disposition to sacrifice for the cause of Western
civilization we had in the early days of the Cold War?
Pat is a peculiar man and if very inaccurate with his numbers since in 1945 the number of Soviet troops facing West, in Germany alone, was 1.5 million, in 1949--the year of NATO's establishment--this number grew to 3 million. I wonder why did it grow, wink, wink. I guess Russians were a little bit queasy about this "democracy" thing. As per "sacrifices for the cause of Western Civilization", I am not sure Pat really lives in a real world anymore. If there were "sacrifices" they, certainly, come across as fully unnecessary and, in fact, grossly harmful when one observes today the current state of the Western world and principles on which it operates. Chimera of "democracy" and "human rights" was needed for the realities of the Cold War 1.0 and, at some point, many did believe in it, yours truly included. Once the Soviet Union was no more and the Sword of Damocles of "Soviet global conquest" disappeared, the mask started to come down. It cam down in full in 1999 with West's gang-rape of Serbia.
Encore with attacking Iraq which had nothing to do with 911 fully demonstrated full hypocrisy and insanity of the empire and all that was accompanied with what seems then as a "positive" development of House Resolution 4444China Trade
Bill in May of 2000 and next, 2001, year China's ascendance to the World Trade Organization--all of it enthusiastically supported by GOP and Clinton Democrats. So, for the US which was dramatically more powerful than British Empire, at least on paper, the "Suez Moment" started around that time. This IS the start of disintegration of the United States and of the aggregate force of sins of the past, from Vietnam to segregation, starting to catch up with the US. Tragedy of 911 was an important symbol but it had primarily a psychological, if not psychiatric, effect. Economically and militarily the United States started to decline even before that. By the end of Obama's Administration the United States was thoroughly deindustrialized, militarily not-impressive and growing in leaps and bounds in terms of incompetence of her elites across the full spectrum of ideological preferences. So, in all, because of the America's size and importance globally, there was no single "Suez Moment"--it is a process of about two decades in making and warnings about America's decline have been heard from many quarters ranging from Orlov, The Saker, me, Patrick Armstrong, Daniel Davies among many others for many years.
Those warnings were issued not because we wanted Empire to survive, but precisely because of a grave danger Empire posed for the American nation which was being dismantled from within since wrongly perceiving itself a "victor" in the Cold War 1.0. So, as of 2018-2020, especially after international disgrace of America's election process, the United States does not exist as such. It ceased to exist and the country which we have today here is some geographic location in which what used to be known as the United States of America existed. Andrei Raevsky today was to the point when wrote a piece titled:
But then again, we all warned that the death wasn't coming--it was already here. And what we have today is a corpse. Yet, recall the last four years and ask yourself a question--the nation which for 4 years was being fed an utter BS of Russiagate and no one even faced a single charge of perjury, lying and treason, speaks volumes about "health" of such a nation, doesn't it? 20 years in historic terms is a very short period of time. The United States self-destructed in a matter of an hour, if not a minute, when compared to the time-scale of human civilization. So, there you go--another one bites the dust. The Saker, however, is still semi-optimistic, or philosophical, when concludes that:
Things will only begin to really change when a new generation of US
leaders will begin look at themselves and at their own responsibility
for the catastrophe which has now happened.
I can only add that one must learn lessons but present crop of America's "top people" is not capable of doing so. They lack in every department required for true leadership. New generation must emerge, but we all know that "thingy": bad times give rise to good people, good people give rise to good times... and on, and on, and on. So, if you ask me about America's Suez Moment, here it is: 1999-2020. This "moment" also saw a meteoric decline of the American "elites" into psychosis and dumbfuckery not seen in many generations.
In related news, as Laurent pointed out in the other thread, Russian MoD ordered 6 corvettes for Pacific Fleet with only 2 of them being pr. 20380, while 4 being pr.20385--Oniks and Zircon carriers. There is a lot of news coming out of Russia nowadays re: Russia's technological development. This report by NTV is in Russian but it gives an excellent view of Zvezda shipyard and Catherine the Great (Ekaterina Velikaya) newest ice-breaking supply multipurpose vessel being floated, including her impressive Russian-made azipods, not to mention the fact that Zvezda's portfolio for today is 50+ vessels, all of them ranging from major size vessels to super-tankers and LNG carriers.
Here is a not very fresh video from Zvezda with English subtitles. Dry dock is already finished, as an example.
And in conclusion--a bit of the Netcentric Warfare porn, Russian S1 Pantsirs networking with Podlyot-K1 radar system (means literally air approach) designed to "land" everything including drones.
So, as you can see Russia continues on her downward spiral of decline and is about to collapse. Any day now, wink, wink.
No, I get it, selling S-400 to NATO member is both good money and good image. But knowing Erdogan who always tries to play his own game, trying to leverage whatever is handy, I am sure some people in Russia are having a blast just observing this whole bargaining back and forth between Turkey and the United States. Today top military guy for Europe, General Curtis Scaparrotti weighted on that:
Russians know damn well what Erdogan is doing and they have no illusions whatsoever about the possibility of Erdo doing a radical 180 and then refusing to buy S-400 AD complexes. But here is the catch--Turkey is at civilizational cross-roads. She always was there geographically, but geopolitics wise she is facing a dramatic choice between increasingly degenerating Europe and some little, like you know, global, shift to the East of Turkey where new economic and geopolitical configuration is being driven by Russia and China. Erdogan, as any man of Asia Minor respects power and everyone knows today that Putin is not only powerful, but he is demi-God who is capable to elect and control the President of the United States, while personally killing Skripals and threatening all true (that is American and UK) "democracies" and in general, the guy is almost omnipotent. Erdogan likes this, but the most important question here is F-35.
No doubt, before failed coup against this very same Erdogan (and there are rumors that demi-God Putin actually helped Erdo in saving his life) there would have been very little chance for any Russian weapon system entering Turkish military mind and praising mantras to F-35 and its allegedly super-pooper technology would have been heard in Turkey everywhere. Today things are slightly more complex. Of course, the United States sells to its allies first of all well-packaged commercial product and only then a weapon system. F-35 is the case in point since behind, sometimes preposterous, claims abaout its capabilities it is rather very expensive mediocre plane. VLO, aka Stealth, today is primarily for the consumption of housewives and fanboys from all kinds of military hardware masturbatory discussion boards, plus for the purpose of scaring the shit out of some cardboard dictators in third or fourth world shithole satrapies and only if those have anything of value to be declared a danger to democracy. Reality is, modern radar and signal processing methods, such as data fusion, and technologies of serious air-defense systems, and S-400, even in its export version, is a damn serious weapon system, basically spelled the end for this comfortable self-deluded paradigm of trading combat capability for a alleged "invisibility" and few kilometers, if that, of reduced range of detection and turned it into exercise in futility against modern integrated AD systems. I mean REAL weapon systems, not some commercial product.
I know Erdo knows this, plus, let's be honest--Turkey will never get F-35 technology transfer from the United States. Russia, hm, that could be an interesting arrangement, especially once one considers where this whole warfare business progresses in the last few years. Erdogan is not stupid, he is shrewd and he will continue to hold on to this bargaining lever for a long time, trying to milk both sides for everything they got, in his mind. But reality is, it is namely the United States which Erdo wants to milk, for now, before he will try to finally orient himself and Turkey somewhere. If he doesn't buy S-400, Russia loses nothing really, those batteries will be utilized elsewhere, but Turkey still will not get technology transfer for F-35 from the US. And here is this little detail. United States increasingly works as a runaway engine and considering who really runs US foreign policy (no, it is not Trump--let's face it, the guy is a real estate developer) there are absolutely no 100% guarantees that Turkey, at some point of time, will not become a possible target herself. One has to seriously consider this when reviewing some really bizarre facts of failed coup against Erdogan in 2016. And of the death of Russian Ambassador same year. F-35 is not a good defensive weapon, especially for the price. But, that is Turkey's conundrum and let her deal with it. I, honestly, do not see Turkey abandoning her NATO commitments but the whole affair is still very interesting to observe and, boy, do I recognize this whole methodology from my visits to so loved by me markets in Baku and elsewhere in Caucasus.
Meanwhile, Scaparrotti draws this horrible picture of Russia, let the man talk:
Surprisingly, he is telling the truth about Russia's Arctic ambitions, while, of course, asking for more-more-more money. But Russia, indeed, does have infrastructure, and, most importantly, largest and most powerful ice-breaker fleet in the world for controlling Arctic. Well, that plus Northern Fleet and other heterogeneous forces. Meanwhile Zvezda already is cutting metal for the third Aframax-class tanker, while building a colossal dry dock.
