Originally built for the
Soviet Navy, the class is named after the first of a series of four ships constructed, , named
Kirov until 1992. Original plans called for construction of five ships. The fifth vessel was planned to be named
Fleet Admiral of the Soviet Union Kuznetsov, also referred as
Dzerzhinsky. and then just
Kuznetsov; but on 4 October 1990, plans for construction of a fifth vessel were abandoned. She is presently laid up and was slated to be scrapped in 2021. , the second vessel in the class, was commissioned in 1984. She was assigned to the Pacific Fleet. In 1992, she was renamed
Admiral Lazarev. The ship became inactive in 1994 and was decommissioned four years later. On 21 February 2021, the Russian Armed Forces and the Russian State Atomic Energy Corporation
Rosatom, signed a contract to dismantle and scrap the nuclear powered heavy cruiser.
Admiral Lazarev set sail 30 April 2021 for 30th Shipyard. Dismantlement should be completed by 30 November 2025. , now
Admiral Nakhimov, was the third ship to enter service, in 1988. She was also assigned to the Northern Fleet. Renamed
Admiral Nakhimov in 1992, she was mothballed in 1999 and reactivated in 2005. She is undergoing overhaul and modernization at
Severodvinsk Shipyard. Construction of the fourth ship,
Yuriy Andropov, encountered many delays; her construction was started in 1986 but was not commissioned until 1998. She was renamed (after
Peter the Great) in 1992. She currently serves as the flagship of Russia's
Northern Fleet. In 1983, a
command and control ship,
SSV-33 Ural, was launched, although the ship would not be officially commissioned until 1989. She utilized the basic hull design of the
Kirov-class vessels, but with a modified superstructure, different armament, and was intended for a different role within the Soviet Navy.
Ural was decommissioned and laid up in 2001, due to high operating costs, and scrapped starting in 2010. On 23 March 2004, English language press reported the Russian Navy Commander-in-Chief, Fleet Admiral
Vladimir Kuroedov said
Pyotr Velikys reactor was in an extremely bad condition and could explode "at any moment", a statement which may have been the result of internal politics within the Russian Navy. The ship was sent to port for a month, and the crew lost one-third of their pay. Russia initially planned to reactivate
Admiral Ushakov and by 2020, but it was later indicated that the condition of the reactor cores of both ships was such that it would prove difficult, expensive and potentially dangerous to remove the spent nuclear fuel and repair the cores. As a consequence, both ships were earmarked for scrapping in 2021. The scrapping of
Admiral Lazarev began in early 2021. As of early 2022, only was operational. Modernization of
Admiral Nakhimov is ongoing and was reported, in 2021, to continue until "at least" 2023, with the modernization of
Pyotr Velikiy to immediately follow and last for about three years. However, in early 2022, Sevmash CEO Mikhail Budnichenko stated that the ship would be delivered to the Russian Navy in 2022. This deadline would also be missed, and Sevmash later clarified that they expected to return the ship to service in 2024. The modernization of
Admiral Nakhimov and her sister ship is to be extensive, with
Admiral Nakhimov expected to receive 174 Vertical-launch (VLS) tubes: 80 for anti-surface and 94 for anti-air warfare, among other upgrades. In early 2022, the Sevmash CEO noted that weapons systems for
Admiral Nakhimov would include: the Fort-M (NATO reporting name: SA-N-6 Grumble) and Pantsyr-M (SA-22 Greyhound) air defense systems and
Paket-NK and
Otvet antisubmarine warfare weapons. It was also reported that the cruiser would potentially be armed with up to 60
3M22 Zircon hypersonic anti-ship missiles. ==Design==