''Yantar'' (Янтарь) is a special purpose
intelligence collection ship built for the
Russian Navy.
The ship has been operated by
the Russian Navy's Main Directorate of Underwater Research (GUGI) since 2015 and is reportedly a
spy ship.
The vessel's home port is
Severomorsk, where it is attached to the
Northern Fleet. It is the
lead ship of its class, with two sister ships under construction.
Design and construction
''Yantar'' was designed by the CMDB
Almaz Design Bureau in
St. Petersburg, and the hull was
laid down on 8 July 2010.
It was
launched in December 2012, and concluded its
sea trials in May 2015. The ship has a length of and a
full displacement of 5,736 tons. It uses
diesel-electric propulsion for a top speed of approximately . It officially has a
complement of 60. The ship was built at the
Yantar Shipyard in
Kaliningrad.
Roles
''Yantar'' can act as a
mothership to
mini-subs. The
United States Navy has stated that the submersibles are able to sever cables miles beneath the ocean's surface.
The submersibles are reportedly capable of operating at depths of up to . The submersibles are reportedly the project 16810 ''Rus''-class submersible
and the project 16811 .
According to Alexei Burilichev, head of the
Russian Defense Ministry's deepwater research department, ''Yantar'' is an oceanic research complex.
Activities
''Yantar'' has been reported in position near
undersea telecommunications cables.
In 2015, ''Yantar'' was spotted off the coast of
Guantánamo Bay
Guantánamo Bay ( es, Bahía de Guantánamo) is a bay in Guantánamo Province at the southeastern end of Cuba. It is the largest harbor on the south side of the island and it is surrounded by steep hills which create an enclave that is cut off ...
,
Cuba.
Summer 2016, ''Yantar'' was anchored outside the
Nuuk,
Greenland.
In 2017, ''Yantar'' was active in the eastern
Mediterranean, near an undersea cable linking
Israel to
Cyprus.
It was also reportedly used to recover "secret equipment" from crashed
Su-33
The Sukhoi Su-33 (russian: Сухой Су-33; NATO reporting name: ''Flanker-D'') is an all-weather carrier-based twin-engine air superiority fighter designed by Sukhoi and manufactured by Komsomolsk-on-Amur Aircraft Production Association, ...
and
MiG-29
The Mikoyan MiG-29 (russian: Микоян МиГ-29; NATO reporting name: Fulcrum) is a twin-engine fighter aircraft designed in the Soviet Union. Developed by the Mikoyan design bureau as an air superiority fighter during the 1970s, the Mi ...
aircraft.
On 23 November 2017, upon an order of Russian President
Vladimir Putin, ''Yantar'' and the specialists of the Russian Navy's 328th expedition search and rescue unit were sent to Argentina's coast to search for the Argentine submarine that went missing on 15 November 2017.
In Summer 2018, she was deployed to Mediterranean off the Syrian coast.
In November 2019, Yantar visited Trinidad and Tobago.
In February 2020, ''Yantar'' was found near
Rio de Janeiro submarine cables by
Brazilian Navy. The crew evaded questions about their intents and turned off the ship identification systems. In late March, ''Yantar'' was anchored off the
Baie de la Seine, a few weeks before the ''
Suffren'' first sea trial out of Cherbourg.
In August 2021, ''Yantar'' was spotted off the coast of
Ireland, running parallel to
AEConnect-1 and the expected route of the Celtic Norse
submarine communications cable
A submarine communications cable is a cable laid on the sea bed between land-based stations to carry telecommunication signals across stretches of ocean and sea. The first submarine communications cables laid beginning in the 1850s carried tel ...
.
Sister ships
Almaz
A sister Project 22010-class ship ''Almaz'' is also under construction.
Burilichev
On 5 February 2021, the third ship of the series was reportedly laid down in the
Vyborg Shipyard under the name Vice-admiral Burilichev, to honor a former head of the GUGI, Alexey Vitalyevich Burilichev, who died in November 2020 due to coronavirus.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Yantar
Naval ships of Russia
Ships built at Yantar Shipyard
2012 ships
Electronic intelligence ships