The three vessels all belong to the Northern Fleet’s Kola based 121st Landing Ship Brigade vessels. They are Project 775 (Ropucha-class) Georgy Pobedonosets (016), Olenegorsky Gornyak (012) and Project 11711 (Ivan Gren-class) Pyotr Morgunov (017) transited the Bosphorus eastward and entered the Black Sea.
This group of vessels follows three other Ropucha-class ships which transited the Bosphorus yesterday. An improved Kilo-class submarine, the Rostov-na-Donu (B-237), is expected to follow.
About Ivan Gren-class landing ship tank (LST)
The Russian Navy acquired the Ivan Gren class amphibious transport (Project 11711) to replace the aging Alligator class (Project 1171) landing ships. The class’ lead ship, Ivan Gren, was laid down in 2004, but because of budget constraints, it was not launched until 2012, eventually joining the Russian Navy in 2018. Sistership Pyotr Morgunov was commissioned in December 2020. The project entails the building of four LSTs, two of which have already been delivered. The last two ships are scheduled to enter Russian Navy service in 2023 and 2024. The first two ships operate under the command of the Russian Navy Northern Fleet.
The class’ 135-meter vessels have a displacement of 5,000–6,000 tons and can transport up to 13 main battle tanks, 36 armored personnel carriers, and 300 marines. The last two ships of the project, Vladimir Andreev and Vasily Trushin, will have a displacement of around 9000 tons in order to have a double carrying capacity.
The main propulsion power comes from two 5200 HP diesel DRRA-3700 engines that propel two shafts at a top speed of 18 knots. The ships also have a bow-thruster for close maneuvers. The operational range is around 3500 nautical miles with 16 knots.
Ivan Gren-class ships are armed with 1×12 30 mm AK-630M-2 “Duet” and 2×6 30 mm AK-630M close-in weapon systems. For short-range air defense, the ships also carry the 9K38 “Igla” (SA-N-10 Grouse) man-portable surface-to-air missile (SAM) system.
An MR-352 Pozitiv air/surface search radar, a navigation radar, an electro-optical close-range air/surface situational awareness system, and a decoy launching system will be part of the sensors and countermeasures package aboard the vessel.
The first two ships can land and house 2 Ka-27 ASW or Ka-29 transport-attack helicopters, the last two ones will have four hangars and carry Kamov Ka-52K carrier-based attack helicopters.
