ARKHANGELSK, July 20 (AVN) - The Severodvisnk-based Zvyozdochka machine-building enterprise is unloading atomic fuel from the Murmansk nuclear submarine withdrawn from the Northern Fleet in 2000, a spokesman for the Arkhangelsk region administration told the Military News Agency on Friday.
The Murmansk submarine named Minsky Komsomolets until 1992 is the second vessel of the Project 949 equipped with Granit anti-ship cruise missiles. The submarine was produced by the Severnoye machine-building enterprise in 1983 and supplied to the Zvyozdochka enterprise in 1993 for medium repairs and modernisation. The submarine did not return to the fleet for the Project 949 vessels were considered to be worn out. That is why after the unloading ends the submarine will be scrapped.
Another submarine of the same project which is supposed to be scrapped is the Arkhangelsk. It was supplied to the fleet in 1980 and is currently in the town of Severodvisnk as well.
Only two vessels were produced in accordance with the Project 949. After that the Severnoye machine-building enterprise launched the production of submarines of modernised Project 949-A for the Northern and Pacific Fleet. The dead Kursk nuclear submarine belonged to the project as well. The last vessel of the Project 949-A i. e. the Tomsk submarine was commissioned in 1996 and sent to Kamchatka.