Russian landing ship Georgy Pobedonosets

Georgy Pobedonosets was built as BDK-45 by Stocznia Północna, part of Gdańsk Shipyard, in Gdańsk, in what was then the Polish People's Republic. She was laid down on 10 December 1983, and launched on 29 June 1984. She was commissioned into the Soviet Navy on 5 March 1985 as part of its Northern Fleet, homeported in Severomorsk, and with the dissolution of the Soviet Union in late December 1991, she went on to serve in the Russian Navy. ==Service==

BDK-45 was several times declared the best ship in her formation, and twice the best surface ship in the Northern Fleet. She was renamed Georgy Pobedonosets on 21 March 2002. In September 2007, she took part in joint naval exercises in the Barents Sea with the Royal Norwegian Navy's , and in 2009, took part in the Ladoga 2009 and Zapad 2009 exercises. She was on this mission for nearly a year, returning on 5 April 2017. On 10 August 2017, she was again at sea, sailing with a detachment of the Northern Fleet led by the Udaloy-class destroyer Severomorsk to the eastern Arctic Ocean. The detachment carried out joint exercises simulating the defence of an industrial facility on the Taimyr Peninsula, before Georgy Pobedonosets and her sister ship Aleksandr Otrakovsky deployed independently of the detachment on 5 September. They carried out a landing operation on Novaya Zemlya, returning to base on 13 September. In mid-January Georgy Pobedonosets and two other Northern Fleet landing ships, the Ropucha-class and the Ivan Gren-class , set sail for the Mediterranean Sea. En route they joined up with three Ropucha-class vessels sailing from the Baltic Fleet, , , and . The six ships were shadowed on their voyage by NATO vessels, including as they passed through the English Channel by and . The Barents Observer reported that the ships were heavily loaded and low in the water, and carrying equipment and troops from the Northern Fleet’s elite forces. ==References==