On 3 February 2024, Knyaz Pozharsky submarine of the Borey-A class was rolled out of the construction hall at the Sevmash shipbuilding plant. The construction of the submarine began in December 2016. It is the eight submarine of the Project 955/955A (Borey/Borey-A) series and the fourth serial production Borey-A submarine. Two more submarines of this class are under construction - Dmitry Donskoy and Knyaz Potemkin - both laid down in August 2021. According to the original plan, the production of this series was supposed to stop at eight submarines. The decision to order two additional ships wa ..read more

Russia began deployment of the EKS/Kupol space-based segment of its early-warning system in 2015, with a launch of Cosmos-2510 on 17 November 2015. That was the first of six Tundra launches - Cosmos-2518 in May 2017, Cosmos-2541 in September 2019, Cosmos-2546 in May 2020, Cosmos-2552 in November 2021, and Cosmos-2563 in November 2022. It appeared that the Air and Space Forces would launch one satellite annually, but I don't see a launch in 2023. The first two satellites worked for about five years. Their station-keeping maneuvered ended in late 2020 and late 2021 respectively. This leaves the ..read more

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and its potentially dangerous link to nuclear weapons is a quite popular topic these days. Some of it is because nobody really knows what the role of AI can be. It is a (relatively) new and quite exciting technology and it seems to offer some benefits in assessing complex situations. People also intuitively understand that there is a potential danger there - since we don't (normally) know how an AI system arrives to its conclusions, we cannot be certain that its assessment of a situation or its recommendations are correct (whatever that means). Given that when is c ..read more

On 5 November 2023, Imperator Alexander III, a submarine of the Project 955A/Borey-A class, conducted a successful launch of a Bulava missile. The submarine was deployed in the White Sea, the warheads reached their targets at the Kura test site. The launch is part of the acceptance tests of the submarine. It is expected to enter service by the end of 2023. The construction of the submarine began in December 2015, according to the original plan, it was expected to enter service in 2020 ..read more

On October 27, 2023 at 09:04 MSK (06:04 UTC) the crews of the Air and Space Forces conducted a successful launch of a Soyuz-2.1b launcher from the launch pad 43/4 of the Plesetsk launch site. The launcher delivered into orbit two satellites - Cosmos-2570 and Cosmos-2571. As it was the case with previous launches, the primary satellite of the mission, Cosmos-2570, released what appears to be a smaller satellite, presumably be named Cosmos-2571. The separation took place around 02:16 UTC on October 29. The satellites received international designations 2023-165A and 2023-165C respectively. Their ..read more

On October 25, 2023 Russian armed forces conducted an exercise of strategic forces. This is an annual exercise that is traditionally held in the fall (one exception was the 2021 exercise that was moved to February 2022). As in previous years, the exercise tested procedures of "a massive nuclear strike in response to a nuclear strike by an adversary." The 2023 scenario repeated the one from previous year in almost all its elements, although it was a nighttime exercise this year. Like in 2022, the exercise included a launch of a Yars missile from a mobile launcher in Plesetsk, a launch of a Sine ..read more

The Air and Space Forces conducted a successful launch of a Soyuz-2.1b rocket from the launch pad No. 3 of the launch complex No. 43 of the Plesetsk space launch site. The launch took place at 16:19:25 MSK (13:19:25 UTC) on 7 August 2023. The satellite that the rocket and its Fregat boost stage delivered into orbit is a Glonass-K2 navigation satellite No. 13L. The satellite was designated Cosmos-2569. It received international designation 2023-114A and was registered by NORAD as object 57517. This is the first satellite of the Glonass-K2 type. The last launch of its previous modification, Glon ..read more

On 29 March 2023, at 22:57:02 MSK (19:57:02 UTC) crews of the Air and Space Forces conducted a successful launch of a Souyz-2.1v launcher from the Plesetsk test site. The satellite delivered into orbit was designated Cosmos-2568. It received international designation 2023-045A and registered by NORAD as object 56091. Cosmos-2568 was deployed on a circular orbit with altitude of about 330 km, which suggests that it is similar to the small imaging satellites of the EO MKA/Razbeg type. Previous launch of a satellite of this class took place in October 2022 ..read more

On 23 March 2023, at 09:40:11 MSK (06:40:11 UTC) crews of the Air and Space Forces conducted a successful launch of a Soyuz 2.1a launcher from the launch pad No. 3 of the launch complex No. 43 of the Plesetsk test site. The satellite delivered into orbit is believed to be a digital cartographic satellite Bars-M. According to an official statement, the satellite is designated Cosmos-2567. It was registered as object 55978 by NORAD and received international designation 2023-040A. This is the fourth launch of satellites of the Bars-M type. The previous launch took place in May 2022 ..read more

A new regiment of Yars mobile missiles was deployed in Bologoye (Vypolzovo in START) in December 2022. It appears that the regiment in question is the 41st missile regiment. The video account of the deployment contains a fairly rare inside view of a Krona shelter ..read more