Russia set to launch its most powerful nuclear sub this month

A file photo of a Russian Yasen-class submarine

Russia will shortly put afloat a second, nuclear-powered Yasen-class submarine — its strongest — in a northern port, a Russian defense source says.

The new vessel, dubbed Kazan, is a fourth-generation Russian submarine, and “is expected to be rolled out and put afloat on March 30,” a Russian defense source told the Moscow-based TASS news agency.

Russian media refer to the country’s fourth-generation submarines as the backbone of the Russian Navy’s strategic nuclear deterrent.

The nuclear-powered, multi-purpose Yasen-class submarines have been designed by the St. Petersburg Malakhit (Malachite) Marine Engineering Bureau. The first Project 885 submarine cruiser “Severodvinsk” was delivered to the Russian Navy in 2014.

In a separate development, US media reported that a Russian ship was seen sailing just 20 miles south of the US Navy submarine base at King’s Bay, Georgia, again.

The Viktor Leonov, an AGI (Auxiliary, General Intelligence) trawler, has a port call scheduled in Jamaica for mid-April, and the assumption among US officials is that it will make one more run up and down the US’s East Coast before heading to Jamaica.

The Russian trawler made a similar journey along the East Coast in February, sailing close to a US naval base in Virginia and Naval Submarine Base New London in Connecticut, which the Navy describes as the “Home of the Submarine Force.”

The US and Russia have been locked in a dispute over a range of issues, including most primarily the Ukrainian crisis.