The majority of warships in the Russian...

"The crews will certainly try to keep their ships in decent condition until the last moment, but the "iron" has its service life. Nobody would dare to set sail on a ship whose bottom has rotten away," the Gazeta newspaper said on Friday citing a Navy source.

Earlier reports indicated that the Black Sea Fleet is set to decommission the Ochakov destroyer and a diesel submarine built in 1982. Next on the "scrap" list are the Kerch destroyer and several large support ships.

The fleet does not expect any additions in 2010 and the prospects of new deliveries in the next few years are also quite slim, the source said.

The official said the only solution for the looming crisis would be the construction of at least a dozen of Project 20380 corvettes which have been designed to protect Russia"s coastal waters and oil and gas sea transportation routes, especially in the Baltic Sea and the Black Sea.

The first Project 20380 corvette, the Steregushchy, was put into

Pages: [1] 2