Russia Finally Launches The Poseidon Armed Submarine Khabarovsk

Flag Russia After a painfully long wait, the Russian submarine Khabarovsk has finally emerged from its construction shed in Severodvinsk. The Pr. 09851 class boat is the second Poseidon carrying submarine in the Russian Navy, following the Pr. 09852 Belgorod. Khabarovsk is a smaller submarine better optimized to the role of carrying Poseidon. The delay of several years is in part caused by a pause during the COVID-19 pandemic. But it also likely resulting from both design changes and resources being directed to the war in Ukraine.

Khabarovsk is estimated to be around 135 meters (443 ft) long and has many elements in common with the Borei-A class ballistic missile submarine. This makes it much shorter than ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs), yet still a large boat of approximately the same size as the Yasen Class cruise missile sub.

Khabarovsk submarine pumpjet
Khabarovsk likely shares the propulsion module with the Borei-A class SSBNs. A minor detail is that the towed array sonar is only present on the port (left) side.

Unusually for submarines (but increasingly common in Russia), the only part of the submarine revealed to the cameras was the stern with its pump-jet propulsor. The bow is likely under cover as with the launch of Belgorod in 2019. The Poseidon intercontinental nuclear armed nuclear powered torpedoes will be carried in the forward hull, although the exact arrangement has yet to be revealed. Because the hull is much narrower than Belgorod (which was based on the extremely wide OSCAR-II class), either the Poseidon or more likely the regular torpedo tubes are likely to be angled outwards.

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