Russia intends to build helicopter carrier by 2022
The first Russian helicopter carrier could be delivered to the Russian Navy within as little as four years, its construction has already been included in the state weapons program, said Russian Deputy Defense Minister Yuriy Borisov, as reported by TASS.
“The construction cycle of a helicopter carrier is a minimum of four years, well, somewhere towards 2022,” he said during the HeliRussia 2017 exhibition, in response to reporters’ questions on when the Russian helicopter carrier could be built. Borisov pointed out that the Navy will receive the ship that same year.
He did not, however, answer the question whether the helicopter carriers would be similar to the Mistral helicopter carriers sold by France to Egypt, Interfax reported.
Alexei Rakhmanov, president of the United Shipbuilding Corporation (USC), announced in December 2016 that there was discussion with the Russian Navy regarding the construction of a helicopter carrier. “Negative experience is also experience,” Rakhmanov said, giving his evaluation of the story with the unsuccessful purchase of French Mistrals.
In March 2015, Rakhmanov said that the USC was prepared to construct the Russian equivalents of “Mistrals” if requested by the Ministry of Defense. “Of course we will build it, there is nothing super difficult about it… On the other hand, we understand perfectly well that there will need to be a clearly formulated proposal and position for this,” Alexei Rakhmanov said on a radio broadcast of Echo Moskvy (Echo of Moscow).
Russia planned to buy two Mistrals from France, and a contract was signed in June 2011. The first ship, named the “Vladivostok”, was supposed to be transferred to the Russian Navy in November 2014, but in September that year, then French President François Hollande announced that the contract was being frozen. The French President made the decision due to the armed conflict that started in Ukraine with the involvement of Russia. In the end Paris announced the termination of the contract, and paid Russia compensation amounting to €949 million.
France sold both ships to Egypt. The first of them was transferred to Egypt in June 2016, where the helicopter carrier was named in honor of the former Egyptian President Abdel Nasser. The second was transferred in October 2016 and was given the name “Anwar El-Sadat” (in honor of another former president of the country).