By TASS Russian news agency
“The vessel arrived in early April. Yantar Shipyard is doing maintenance in the framework of the seven-year warranty. Some pipeline and hull work is to be done by the end of June. It is the first case since the handover to the customer when the vessel arrived in the shipyard for maintenance.”
Yantar Shipyard spokesperson
The vessel is in order and there were no remarks from the customer in five years, however technical maintenance is necessary to keep it in permanent readiness.
The Yantar is the lead vessel of project 22010 designed by Almaz Bureau and built by Yantar Shipyard. The displacement is 5200 tons. The vessel is 108.1 meters long and 17.2 meters wide. It was laid on July 8, 2010 and named after the producer shipyard. The customer received the vessel on May 23, 2015. Yantar Shipyard is building the Almaz second vessel of project 22010.
Naval News comments
According to Covert Shores, Yantar is operated by Russia’s secretive Main Directorate of Underwater Research (GUGI) who operates many of Russia’s special mission submarines.
Yantar (actually Cruys) was launched in 2014 and joined the Russian Navy in 2015. It is described variously as a ‘Special Purpose Ship’ and an ‘Oceanographic vessel’ which is a euphemism for a spy ship. She can host two deep submergence submarines for undersea engineering missions. These missions are thought to include cable cutting, laying of taps on undersea cables, removing other countries’ taps (‘delousing’) and related intelligence missions. She may also perform other special missions such as recovery of sensitive equipment from crashed aircraft or test missiles.
