Paul Goble
Staunton, Aug. 6 – At a time when Russia’s only aircraft carrier seems destined for the scrap heap, where her major naval vessel may soon follow, and the average age of the country’s ships of all kinds is over 40 years old, Moscow has slashed the budget for shipbuilding by more than 40 percent to free up money to pay for Putin’s war in Ukraine.
On these developments, see theins.ru/politika/283290,iz.ru/1931939/timofei-volkov-maksim-manaev/bez-sdaci-bpk-admiral-cabanenko-ne-vyidet-iz-remonta-v-etom-godu, and moscowtimes.ru/2025/08/06/krupneishaya-sudostroitelnaya-goskompaniya-rossii-nachala-uvolneniya-iz-za-otsutstviya-deneg-na-modernizatsiyu-flota-a170867.
At the end of July, officials called on the government to reduce the financing of the Russian civic fleet by more than 40 percent, from 231 billion to 134.8 billion rubles (2.4 billion to 1.5 billion US dollars), a cutback that will also reduce the capacity of Russian yards to repair and build military vessels as well (moscowtimes.ru/2025/07/28/programmu-obnovleniya-rossiiskogo-flota-reshili-pustit-pod-nozh-posle-obvala-dohodov-byudzheta-a169984).
Unless this cutback in funds is reduced soon, Russian experts say, their country will not be able to meet Putin’s ambitious fleet construction plans and instead will be confronted by a situation in which ever more accidents are likely and in which existing ships will be spending more time under repair, both of which will reduce the size of the already pressed fleet.
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