If in the past the Russian Navy figured in world news at all, it was because one of its nuclear submarines had caught fire or its sole aircraft carrier, the Admiral Kuznetsov, was making a rare appearance in international waters. Now the Russian fleet is in the headlines, suddenly a challenger to the maritime powers of the Northern Hemisphere.
What happened?
A grandiose program to rearm the navy — 70 new ships by 2020, no less — remains largely in blueprints. All that the fleet has gotten so far is three nuclear submarines and several corvettes. The two familiar retarding forces — corruption and incompetency — make the work of shipyards torturously slow, so when a new warship does leave the wharf it is already slightly obsolete.