Russian Navy

The Russian Navy is in a period of forced adaptation, balancing global ambitions written into a naval doctrine that runs to 2050 against an ageing fleet, sanctions, industrial bottlenecks and the heaviest combat losses any navy has suffered since the Second World War. Its priorities are strategic nuclear deterrence, coastal defence, and holding NATO targets at risk with long-range precision weapons rather than contesting sea control.

The submarine force remains the most credible component. Borei-A ballistic missile submarines, the seventh of which entered service in 2025, carry the sea-based deterrent, while Yasen and Yasen-M cruise missile boats, now six in service, provide the long-range conventional strike capability the surface fleet lacks; Moscow intends them to replace the entire third-generation nuclear attack force by the mid-2030s. Conventional construction continues at a slower pace with improved Kilo and Lada-class boats delivered to the Pacific and Baltic fleets.

The surface fleet tells the opposite story. It is composed largely of ageing Soviet-era cruisers, destroyers and amphibious ships whose availability is falling, and its renewal rests on small missile-armed corvettes rather than major combatants. The sole aircraft carrier, Admiral Kuznetsov, has effectively reached the end of the line: repair work was suspended in 2025 after nearly a decade of refit and cost overruns, and the ship is now expected to be sold or scrapped, leaving Russia without a carrier for the foreseeable future.

The Black Sea Fleet has been progressively dismantled by an adversary with no fleet of its own. Ukrainian uncrewed surface and aerial systems, now reaching several hundred kilometres, have forced the fleet out of Crimea and then made even its fallback anchorages unsafe. Mass drone attacks on Novorossiysk in March and April 2026 damaged the frigates Admiral Essen and Admiral Makarov, the anti-submarine ships Yeysk and Kasimov and the minesweeper Valentin Pikul; strikes on Sevastopol hit the landing ships Yamal and Nikolai Filchenkov and the intelligence vessel Ivan Khurs; a Kilo-class submarine was damaged at Novorossiysk; and losses have continued as far east as Gelendzhik, where a patrol boat was sunk pier-side in 2026.

Where Russia retains genuine leverage is in the Arctic and the undersea domain. The Northern Fleet, the world's largest icebreaker force and the bastion concept protecting its ballistic missile submarines remain intact, and Russian submarines and research ships operate around the cables and pipelines of the North Atlantic and the Baltic, a persistent concern for NATO. Elsewhere, the "Kalibrization" of even small combatants gives Moscow a strike option from protected waters, and hypersonic Zircon missiles are being fielded on selected units. In practice, however, the navy's effective reach in the coming years will be concentrated in its near seas, the Arctic and beneath the surface.