July 17, 2024: The White Sea in Russia’s extreme northwest is a large 90,000 square kilometer body of seawater with an average depth of sixty meters. It is the southern inlet of the Barents Sea surrounded by Karelia to the west, the Kola Peninsula to the north, and the Kanin Peninsula to the northeast. The whole of the White Sea is under Russian sovereignty and considered to be part of the internal waters of Russia. This makes the While Sea ideal for conducting sea trials for new nuclear submarines, like the fifth Yasen class submarine named Arkhangelsk. This submarine was built at the Sevmash shipyard near the port city of Severodvinsk on the White Sea. This is the only shipyard in Russia building nuclear powered submarines. Yasen-Class SSNs (nuclear powered attack submarines) are the Russian answer to the American Virginia class. The Virginias are a more recent design while the Yasen is a late Cold War effort that had some tech upgrades in the two decades it took to build the first one. This Yasen entered service in 2014, followed by a second and third in 2021.The fourth Yasen entered service in 2023. In 2024 the fifth one is now undergoing sea trials in the White Sea.

With five Yasens completed there are still seven more on the way, if the Russian shipbuilding budget can pay for it. Each Yasen costs over $700 million. The first Yasen entered service in 2017 and currently only four have been completed and seven more are being built. That’s all Russia can afford. The first American Virginia Class SSN entered service in 2004. So far 24 have been built, with ten more under construction and plans to eventually, in the 2030s, have 66. Each Virginia costs $1.8 billion.

The 13,800-ton Yasens were built after the Cold War but are updated Cold War era designs armed with Kalibr anti-ship or cruise missiles and ten torpedo tubes (eight 650mm and two 533mm). What Russia has not been able to do is keep up with silencing and detection (sensor) tech. American sub commanders are not being overconfident about all this but base their assessments on growing opportunities for the quieter American SSNs, especially the Virginias, to detect a Russian SSN (or diesel-electric boat) and stalk it for days or weeks without ever being discovered.

This was a Cold War practice and how the U.S. Navy discovered, in the 1980s, that the latest Russian SSNs were much quieter. But there are few of them and now improved American sensors make them easier to detect. The U.S. was apparently able to detect and stalk the Yasen, getting a good sense of how much quieter it is, but apparently not enough to avoid detection by the Virginias. As improved as Yasen is, it had lots of problems getting into service.

Russian submarine building has been on life support since the Cold War ended in 1991. Many subs under construction at the end of the Cold War were canceled, and the few which avoided it spent a decade or more waiting for enough money to resume construction. The first Yasen crew was put together in 2007 and then spent years training and waiting. The crew of 85 finally got their new boat in 2014, after record delays and time spent in the shipyard getting tweaked. Subsequent Yasens did not take as long to complete but there are still only five of them compared to 22 American Virginians in service. The Virginia’s have a crew of 135. Russian nuclear subs have always relied more on automation so their subs could have smaller crews.

Another difference between Virginia Class SSNs and the new Russian submarines is that the Yasens are SSGNs, meaning they carry more missiles launched from their larger 650mm torpedo tubes. The Yasens are larger, displacing 13,800 tons submerged compared to 7,800 tons for the Virginias, except the last ten Black 5 boats which will displace 10,200 tons each. The Block 5 Virginias also carry more cruise missiles launched from twelve vertical tubes. The Yasens carry VLS tubes for 40 missiles and 24 torpedoes for its ten torpedo tubes.