The Real Impact of Crimean Sanctions (4). Missed Deadlines for the Production of Karakurt Missile Corvettes at the Morye Shipyard in Feodosia

The Morye Shipyard, Ukraine's state-run enterprise is a part of Ukroboronprom concern. It is located in Feodosia (Primorske), occupied Crimea.

Andrii KLYMENKO,
Tetyana GUCHAKOVA,
Olha KORBUT
The Monitoring Group of the Black Sea Institute of Strategic Studies and BSNews

Translated from Ukrainian by HANNA KLYMENKO

The BlackSeaNews presents a series of publications on the real impact of Crimean sanctions on Russia's economy.

The contents include:

Crimea Occupation, Sanctions, and Blockade. The State of the Sanctions Regime as of 1 February 2020
The Impact of Sanctions on the Crimean Banking
The Impact of Sanctions on Maritime Connections with the Occupied Crimean Peninsula
Missed Deadlines for the Production of Karakurt Missile Corvettes at the Morye Shipyard in Feodosia
The Imposition of U.S. Sanctions against Russian Plants over the Production of Warships in Crimea
The Peculiarities of Economic Processes in Russia and Occupied Crimea under Sanctions
Russia's Investment in Fixed Capital in Occupied Crimea and Sevastopol. What Russian Investment Money is Spent on in Crimea and Sevastopol
The Heavily Subsidised Budget Model of Crimea and Sevastopol
The Updated "Crimean Sanctions Package"
The Policy of Non-recognition of the Attempt to Annex the Crimean Peninsula
The Cost of the Occupation to Russia and What Awaits Crimea and Sevastopol

The view of the Morye Shipyard in Feodosia, Crimea, in January 2017. Photo: BlackSeaNews archive

On 21 June 2018, the proposals for new Crimean sanctions¹ were presented at a press conference at the UNIAN news agency (Kyiv). They were also formally submitted to the U.S. and EU embassies. The proposals read as follows:

The Leningrad Shipyard Pella first became a socalled "curator" and then a "leaseholder" of the Morye shipyard that is owned by the state of Ukraine (Feodosia, the Autonomous Republic of Crimea). After the occupation of Crimea, the Morye shipyard was seized, expropriated, and "transferred" into the federal ownership of Russia. On 15 November 2016, the Morye shipyard was leased to the St. Peterburg's Pella shipyard until the end of 2020.

Currently, the Russian Pella shipyard is building three new Project 22800 inner maritime zone missile corvettes (codename Karakurt), small-size missile ships according to the Russian classification, at the Morye shipyard.

Note: The Project 22800 Karakurt is Russia's guided missile corvettes. Displacement: 800 tons. Length: 67 m. Beam: 11 m. Draft: 3.3 m. Speed: 30 knots. Range: 2.500 nmi. Endurance: 15 days. Armament: 1*76.2 mm 59-caliber AK-176MA or 100 mm A-190 automatic dual-purpose guns. 1*Pantsir-M CIWS with Hermes-K missiles or 1*3M89 Palash/Palma CIWS with Sosna-R missiles or 2*AK-630M-2 CIWS.

Even before the "official lease" of the Morye shipyard, on 10 May 2016, the Pella shipyard started building Shtorm, the first in a series of 3 missile corvettes of the new Project 22800 (codename Karakurt), for the Black Sea Fleet of the Russian Federation, as part of the Russian state defence contract. The vessel is scheduled to be commissioned in 2019.

On 17 March 2017, the shipyard began the construction of Okhotsk, the second missile ship in that series, and on 19 December 2017 – Vikhr, the third corvette, both to be completed in 2019.

The RF's prime minister Dmitry Medvedev with the envoy to the Southern Federal District Vladimir Ustinov inspect the construction of Karakurt corvettes at the seized Morye Shipyard in Feodosia on 4 August 2017. https://www.gazeta.ru/politics/2017/08/04_a_10819105.shtml

It is worth mentioning that since 10 March 2014, the Pella shipyard has owned Germany's J.J. Sietas Shipyard through the subsidiary Pella Sietas GmbH, Neuenfelder Fährdeich 88, 21129 Hamburg, www.pellasietas.com (in Russian: ОАО «Ленинградский судостроительный завод «Пелла». Россия, 187330, Ленинградская обл., Кировский рн, г. Отрадное, ул. Центральная, д. 4. Тел.: +7 (812) 3364066, тел/факс: +7 (81362) 4-01-82, E-mail: [email protected], http:// www.pellaship.ru).

Sanctions proposals by the Monitoring Group: blocking all Pella's assets and prohibiting U.S. and EU businesses from any collaboration with the OAO Leningrad Shipyard Pella².

Afterwards, events unfolded as follows.

The first of the three "Feodosia Karakurts" – the Kozelsk small-size missile ship, yard number 254 (during laying down it was named Shtorm), was laid down on 10 May 2016, it was scheduled to be commissioned into the Black Sea Fleet in 2019, and was actually launched on 9 October 2019 in an unfinished condition.

On 17 October 2019, the GERMES tug (IMO 8920945) began towing the Kozelsk small-size missile ship from the Morye shipyard in Feodosia across the Kerch Strait to the Taganrog Bay of the Sea of Azov, where on 19 October it handed the towing over to the river tugs KAPITAN SHLYGIN (MMSI 273311220) and REYDOVIY 13 (MMSI 273360340), which both continued to tow it to Volgograd, and the latter – further to Kazan, where the Kozelsk small-size missile ship was transferred to other vessels to be towed up the Volga-Baltic Waterway (passing from the Rybinsk Reservoir through Lake Beloye, Lake Onega, the Svir River, Lake Ladoga, the Neva River, see the map on p. 13).

On 16 November 2019, the Kozelsk small-size missile ship was delivered to the Pella shipyard in Leningrad Oblast. The towing operation took 32 days.

Towing of the unfinished Kozelsk corvette from the Morye Shipyard (Feodosia), Don River, Rostov-on-Don. 21 October 2019. Photo: BlackSeaNews archive

The Okhotsk small-size missile ship, yard number 255 (during laying down it was named Tsiklon), was laid down on 17 March 2017. It was scheduled to be commissioned into the Black Sea Fleet in 2019 and was actually launched on 29 October 2019.

It was immediately towed to Rostov-on-Don by the ANTEY tug (IMO 8020147), arrived at the Alexandrovsky roadstead, the Don River, on 2 November 2019, and on 6 November, the Okhotsk small-size missile ship was delivered for a temporary winter holding anchorage to the Aksay boat basin of the Port of Rostov-on-Don (the 2nd cargo area, 17 Levoberezhnaya St., stanitsa Olginskaya, Aksaysky District of Rostov-on-Don, the left bank of the Don River).

The Vikhr small-size missile ship, yard number 256 (the name was given during laying down and so far has not been changed), was laid down on 19 December 2017, launched on 13 November 2019. Almost immediately, on 16 November 2019, the GERMES tug (IMO 8920945) began towing the Vikhr small-size missile ship from the Morye shipyard in Feodosia to Rostov-on-Don. On 20 November, the Vikhr small-size missile ship was delivered for a temporary winter holding anchorage to the Aksay boat basin of the Port of Rostov-on-Don, next to the Okhotsk small-size missile ship.

The towing route of the unfinished missile corvettes from the Morye Shipyard in Feodosia, in occupied Crimea, to the Pella Shipyard near St. Petersburg up the rivers of the RF.

The threat of sanctions has led to the suspension of the construction of the missile corvettes for the RF's Black Sea Fleet at the seized Crimean Morye shipyard and the sudden redeployment of the unfinished hulls of these ships.

Note that the towing of the second and third ships started at a time when it was already clear that they would not be delivered to Leningrad oblast before the RF's inland waterways were closed to navigation (usually the navigation closes in mid-November).

That is, the two unfinished corvettes instead of staying in winter on the covered ways of the Morye shipyard in Feodosia will winter in the water area of the Don River, which will be frozen until April 2020, i.e. for almost six months. They will be able to reach their destination no earlier than mid-May 2020 after the navigation through the locks of the Volga-Balc Waterway opens.

Thus, even the mere threat of sanctions has led to the suspension of the missile corvettes construction at the seized Morye shipyard in Feodosia and to an increase of at least half a year in the construction time of these corvettes, which should have strengthened the missile capabilities of the RF's Black Sea Fleet.

1. https://press.unian.ua/press/10161413-u-maydani-zakordonnih-sprav-fiksuyut-aktivizaciyu-rosiyeyu-sprob-postaviti-pid-sumniv-efektivnist-sankciy-pro-neji-video.html 2. Details: New Economic Sanctions Against the RF in Connection with its Illegal Activity in Occupied Crimea https://www.blackseanews.net/en/read/142641

to be continued...

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The monitoring of violations of international sanctions against Russia and of the legal regime of the Crimean temporarily occupied territory, as well as the publication of this book, have been supported by the European Program of the International Renaissance Foundation. The views of the authors do not necessarily reflect the position of the International Renaissance Foundation.