On Tuesday, July 28, 2026, the press service of Russia’s Sevmash shipyard (Northern Machine-Building Enterprise) in Severodvinsk announced that the latest Project 885M Yasen-M nuclear-powered multirole submarine, designated K-563 Ulyanovsk, had been christened and rolled out of the production hall. The class is known to NATO as Severodvinsk.
Photos: E. Mansimova and M. Vorobyov, Sevmash
The event was attended by Deputy Prime Minister and Presidential Plenipotentiary Envoy to the Far Eastern Federal District Yury Trutnev; Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Navy Adm. Alexander Moiseyev; Minister for the Development of the Russian Far East and Arctic Alexey Chekunkov; United Shipbuilding Corporation Deputy Director General for Naval Shipbuilding Andrey Bogomolov; governors of the Arkhangelsk and Ulyanovsk regions Alexander Tsybulsky and Alexey Russkikh; representatives of industrial enterprises; and representatives of the Malachite Marine Engineering Bureau, which designed the submarine.
The keel of K-563 Ulyanovsk was laid on July 28, 2017, meaning that its construction took exactly nine years to the day. The submarine is expected to be launched within the next few days. Following completion of sea and acceptance trials, it is scheduled to enter service with the Russian Navy’s Pacific Fleet by December 2027 and be assigned to the 10th Submarine Division at Vilyuchinsk.
Interestingly, in 2021 the TASS news agency claimed that the submarine would be completed to the modified Project 09853 design as a special-purpose submarine intended to carry autonomous uncrewed underwater vehicles or large nuclear-powered torpedoes armed with thermonuclear warheads, designated 2M39 Poseidon. The weapon was previously known as Status-6 and is designated Kanyon by NATO. This would have made it similar to the Project 09852 K-329 Belgorod, which has entered service, and the launched Project 09851 Khabarovsk. Publicly available information, however, indicates that Project 09853 is represented by the K-??? Orenburg currently under construction, while two additional submarines have been ordered.
The submarine is 139.5 m long and 15 m wide, with a surfaced displacement of 8,600 tonnes and a submerged displacement of 13,800 tonnes. It is powered by two OK-650KPM pressurized-water reactors rated at 200 MW each.
It is the second submarine designed from the outset to carry 3M22 Tsirkon hypersonic missiles, designated SS-N-33 by NATO. The weapon has been tested aboard the prototype K-560 Severodvinsk since October 2021. The first such submarine is K-572 Perm, which is currently undergoing acceptance trials and, according to the latest information, is expected to enter service this year.
Submarines of the baseline design have so far been equipped with 10 vertical launch systems capable of carrying 50 Kalibr-PL-family cruise missiles, including the 3M-54K/K1 anti-ship variants and the 3M-14K land-attack missile, or 40 P-800 Oniks missiles. They also carry eight torpedo tubes, comprising six 650 mm tubes and two 533 mm tubes. Perm received unspecified structural modifications to accommodate the new weapon.
Russia currently operates the prototype K-560 Severodvinsk, in service since December 2013, and the production submarines K-561 Kazan, commissioned on May 7, 2021; K-573 Novosibirsk, commissioned on December 21, 2021; K-571 Krasnoyarsk, commissioned on December 11, 2023; and K-564 Arkhangelsk, commissioned on December 27, 2024. Three more are under construction: K-??? Voronezh, laid down on July 20, 2020; K-??? Vladivostok, also laid down on July 20, 2020; and K-??? Murmansk, laid down on June 17, 2026. Construction of K-??? Bratsk and another as-yet-unnamed submarine has also been announced. In total, plans call for 12 submarines, with six each assigned to the Northern and Pacific Fleets. Beginning with Voronezh, subsequent vessels are expected to be armed with improved Kalibr-M cruise missiles with a stated range of 4,500 km.
See also:
- Russia: Strategic Submarine K-555 Knyaz Pozharsky Enters Service
- Russia Resumes Tests of the Nuclear-Powered 9M730 Burevestnik Missile
- Russia Carries Out Grom Strategic Nuclear Deterrence Drills
- Russia: Launch of the missile armament transport ship Akademik Makeyev
- Modernized Nuclear-Powered Missile Cruiser Admiral Nakhimov Begins Trials