Putin Finalizes Long-Term Plan to Revamp Russian Navy

Following a series of setbacks and combat losses in the Black Sea Fleet, Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed off on a new strategy to revamp his country's battered image as a naval power.

Kremlin aide Nikolai Patrushev - who served alongside Putin in the Soviet KGB - told Russian state media this week that a new, as-yet-unrevealed strategy has been finalized. In an interview, he described Russia's maritime-power status as "gradually recovering."

"It is impossible to carry out such work without a long-term vision of the scenarios for the development of the situation in the oceans, the evolution of challenges and threats, and, of course, without defining the goals and objectives facing the Russian Navy," Patrushev told state-owned Argumenti i Facti.

The Russian Navy is powerful, but has had serious setbacks over the past several years. Sanctions have made it harder to get key parts and equipment for shipbuilding and ship repair, slowing down Russia's shipyard sector. The service's sole aircraft carrier, the aging Admiral Kuznetzov, has been under repair since at least 2018; some analysts believe that it will never deploy again, leaving Russia without the prestige and power projection capability of carrier aviation.

Worst of all, Ukraine - which lacks any conventional warships - has damaged or destroyed about one third of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, purely through the use of drone boat attacks and missile strikes. Ukrainian "Magura" unmanned boats continue to disrupt Russian operations in the northern Black Sea, even near the Russian stronghold of Novorossiysk.

Ukraine's modern methods have raised questions about the future of naval warfare, and about the role of unmanned vessels in open-ocean combat. In the interview, Patrushev said that the new Russian naval strategy "answers the fundamental question of what Russia’s naval power must look like in order to effectively defend its interests in the world’s oceans."

Further details of the plan have not been released, but Putin previously announced a $100 billion shipbuilding budget for 2025-35.