The first stealth corvette of Russia's new Project 20380 class will be displayed in public for the first time at the IMDS 2007 maritime defense show in St Petersburg from June 27 - July 1. 

The ship, Stereguschiy, is presently in the Baltic Sea for sea trials but was laid down at St. Petersburg's Severnaya Verf shipyard in December 2001. 

At the time, many in Russia were quite pessimistic about the future of the new program. The shipyard was full of rusting combat ships of the Russian Navy waiting for their turn and budget resources to be repaired. In order to keep production running the Russian shipbuilding companies were competing with each other for export orders from India and China. Russian Navy plans to order up to 40 new Project 20380 corvettes were criticized as inappropriate given the service's limited budget -- the program was predicted to have serious delays.

However, now that Russia's defense budget has started to grow everything has changed. The first corvette was launched a year ago while Severnaya Verf has already laid down three more ships of the series. In May Stereguschiy headed for the second stage of its sea trials in the Baltic Sea. The trials will be finished in June when the ship returns to St. Petersburg tor the IMDS 2007 show. According to Severnay Verf, after the show the corvette will start its government acceptance trials and is to be handed over to the Navy this November.

Three other corvettes of the same class are at various stages of completion. Severnaya Verf reports that it has completed the hull of the second ship Soobrazitelny (laid down in May 2003) and now is working on the third one – Boikiy (laid down in July 2005). The fourth corvette, named Stoikiy, was laid down in November 2006.

The Stereguschiy class corvettes demonstrate new priorities of the Russian Navy. The service is now mainly focused on protecting Russia's maritime borders and offshore economic zones. The Project 20380 ship design is from the St. Petersburg-based Almaz maritime design bureau. It is a multirole small patrol ship for littoral defense with a maximum speed of 27 knots and features distinct stealth characteristics.

A more comprehsive descrioption of this new Russian surface combatant is scheduled to be published in the July/August issue of DTI.

--Sean Meade for Maxim Pyadushkin

(Photo: Stereguschiy seen alongside in St Petersburg. Credit: Severnaya Verf)