Shipbuilder shares video of Russian guided missile cruiser refit

Russia’s Zvezdochka shipyard shared a video on YouTube showing a portion of works undertaken on the Russian Navy’s Sava-class guided missile cruiser Marshal Ustinov.

The cruiser was recently delivered to the navy after spending five years in the port for repairs.

This video does not show all repair phases the ship went through as extensive refit works on the Project 1164 cruiser began in 2011 and included work on the ship’s hull, propulsion and engines.

Apart from likely financial reasons, another reason why the refit took so long was because the works were complicated by the absence of as-built documentation requiring the company to develop complete sets of systems and tooling from scratch. The amount of work that has gone into the refit of Marshal Ustinov would make work on the other two cruisers faster, the company noted.

Marshal Ustinov is one of three Sava-class destroyers operated by the Russian Navy. Russia initially intended to operate ten ships in the class but due to the collapse of the Soviet Union the other seven ships were never finished.