Key Points – Russia’s Yasen-Class and modernized Yasen-M class nuclear-powered submarines, including the newest Arkhangelsk (entered service Dec 2024), represent a significant shift in Russian naval strategy.
-These submarines have one mission: to beat NATO and U.S. forces underwater, or, using missiles, strike land-based targets.
-These exceptionally quiet submarines, rivaling US Seawolf/Virginia classes, are increasingly equipped for long-range land attack missions with a Vertical Launch System (VLS) housing 32 missiles like the Tsirkon hypersonic, Oniks anti-ship, and Kalibr cruise missiles, alongside traditional torpedoes.
-This evolution towards an SSGN-like role, emphasizing standoff strikes, challenges traditional NATO anti-submarine warfare strategies like GIUK gap barriers, as Yasens may not need to transit these areas to hit targets.
The Russian Navy’s Yasen-class Submarines: A Shift in Strategy?
The Yasen-class and its updated Yasen-M variant are some of the quietest submarines in service with the Russian Navy, said to rival even the ultra-quiet American Seawolf and Virginia-classes.
Thanks in part to their low acoustic signature, the Russian Navy appears to be comfortable using submarines as land-attack platforms, a departure from typical Soviet or Russian submarine doctrine.
The newest submarine to enter service with the Russian Navy is the Arkhangelsk, a modified Yasen-M-class submarine that the navy accepted in December of last year.
“The nuclear submarine cruiser Arkhangelsk is a carrier of all types of naval missile weapons, capable of effectively hitting both sea and coastal targets,” said Navy Commander-in-Chief Alexander Moiseyev at a Russian Navy ceremony late last year.
“This allows the Yasen-M class submarines to remain an effective and promising weapon. Thanks to this, in peacetime they make an invaluable contribution to maintaining global and regional security.”
What Makes the Yasen-Class Special Submarines
Both the Yasen and Yasen-M-class submarines are some of the quietest, most advanced submarines to ever sail with the Russian or Soviet Navies and are among the best candidates in the Russian Navy for a submarine that could credibly challenge the American underwater edge.
A newer nuclear reactor design is responsible for the slightly smaller hull length of the Yasen-M-class, but both submarine designs are considered extremely capable. A low acoustic signature is of obvious benefit to the submarines in the course of their operations, as is their weapon suite.
In addition to the Yasen’s Futlyar heavyweight torpedoes, which are wire-guided and thought to have a 50-kilometer range, the submarines can also target land-based assets. Vertical Launch Systems pack 32 missiles onboard, a potent mix of Tsircon hypersonic missiles, Oniks anti-ship missiles, and Kalibr cruise missiles.
A Change in Role
As a consequence of the submarine’s capabilities, their role within the Russian Navy is a departure from the past.
Instead of focusing on slipping into the Atlantic Ocean and away from Russian home waters, the Yasens can hold surface ships and other submarines at risk, as well as target onshore installations in coastal areas.
Long-range and very rapid hypersonic missiles may enable submarines like the Yasen and Yasen-M classes to hold valuable military targets, as well as cities and other important nodes, at risk without necessarily requiring a proximity launch.
Nuclear-armed ballistic missile submarines aside, both the Soviet and Russian Navies have tended to eschew the kind of power projection that some submarines in the United States Navy embrace, opting instead to focus on defending home waters as well as anti-submarine and anti-surface warfare.
But the Yasen and Yasen-M-class are, thanks to their far-reaching missiles suite, leaning toward a significant shift in Russian submarine strategy.
Legacy Torpedoes: Potential Liability
Despite the various strengths of the class, a potential chink in the submarine’s armor, so to speak, might be its torpedoes. Izvestia, a Russian daily newspaper, raised several important points regarding the torpedoes’ age, readiness, and reliability.
“There are also certain questions about the torpedo armament – it is from the Soviet era – and they will have to be resolved. The new torpedoes have not yet been fully tested – there is work to do, something to improve,” the paper said, raising a crucial question. “Potentially, this is a very important acquisition,” it said.
There is a precedent for torpedo-related disasters aboard submarines in the Russian Navy, too: the 2000 Kursk disaster, one of the worst losses of life on a Russian or Soviet submarine outside of combat operations, holds as a likely culprit a faulty torpedo.
A Shift in the Air for the Russian Navy
The latest Yasen-M submarines represent a shift in the Russian Navy’s course, a movement along a different tack that is pushing the submarines into a different role within the Navy than they’ve typically enjoyed. A breakdown of that change, provided by the Royal United Services Institute, a think tank, provides a worthwhile outline.
“From a planning standpoint, the most notable feature of [the new Yasins are a] capacity to launch a range of anti-ship and land attack missiles, including the hypersonic 3M22 Zircon,” RUSI said.
Furthermore, “the shift from SSNs like the Akula, which are primarily optimised for a hunter-killer role, towards a concept closer to nuclear guided missile submarines (SSGNs), is likely indicative of a shift in the way that Russian submarines will contribute to future campaigns.”
Additionally, “long-range strike missions appear to be superseding sea lines of communication (SLOC) interdiction as a primary task. This will likely necessitate a change in how NATO manages the anti-submarine warfare (ASW) challenge in the High North, given that a strategy of barrier defence at the GIUK (Greenland–Iceland–UK) gap may actually do little to impact Russian submarines, which may have little need to traverse this barrier in order to achieve their operational ends.”
About the Author: Caleb Larson
Caleb Larson is an American multiformat journalist based in Berlin, Germany. His work covers the intersection of conflict and society, focusing on American foreign policy and European security. He has reported from Germany, Russia, and the United States. Most recently, he covered the war in Ukraine, reporting extensively on the war’s shifting battle lines from Donbas and writing on the war’s civilian and humanitarian toll. Previously, he worked as a Defense Reporter for POLITICO Europe. You can follow his latest work on X.
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