During the Cold War of the last century, the shipbuilding industries of the United States and the Soviet Union, especially the military shipbuilding industry, developed by leaps and bounds, and the naval forces of the two countries expanded unprecedentedly. The Cold War ended in American victory, Gorbachev's dereliction of duty buried the Soviet Union, and after the fall of the Red Giant, the nascent Ukraine and Russia were also plunged into a naval tragedy that was difficult to escape.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="3" > collapsed Ukraine</h1>
During the Soviet era, due to the dual role of geographical conditions and external threats, the Soviet Union focused a large part of the naval shipbuilding industry on Ukraine on the Black Sea coast. In its most glorious period, Ukrainian shipyards simultaneously built aircraft carriers, large landing ships, destroyers and submarines, from which battleship after warship sailed to the Far East, the Pacific Ocean or the Atlantic Ocean.
The once mighty Soviet Navy
More importantly, during this period, the Soviet Union fully supported ukraine's shipbuilding industry, and a large number of technical talents poured into Ukraine from all over the Soviet Union, which laid the foundation for the Soviet Red Navy to compete with the United States for hegemony.
In its most glorious moments, Ukraine alone has 5 shipbuilding companies in Nikolaev Oblast, Kiev has 3 shipbuilding companies, and Kerch also has 3 shipbuilding companies - small Ukraine has as many as 18 shipbuilding industry-related enterprises, 6 of which are large shipyards, such as Nikolaevsky Shipyard, Chernomorsky Shipyard and so on.
Once an unprecedented Ukrainian naval shipyard
The warships they built were also quite powerful: the Type 1164 Honor-class destroyer, the Type 11351 patrol ship built for the KGB, and of course the famous aircraft carrier Ulyanovsk.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, some Ukrainians have not yet recovered from the joy of independence, and a tragedy has quietly staged. As a result of the collapse of the Soviet Union, relations between Ukraine and other former Soviet states collapsed to a large extent, with direct disastrous consequences – the strength of Ukraine's shipbuilding industry far exceeded the actual needs of the country.
Ukrainian shipyards are no longer able to build large warships
After all, just after the dissolution, everyone has no money in their pockets, and the Ukrainian government itself, which cannot receive foreign orders, can not continue to build those super giant ships that are comparable to gold-devouring beasts, which has led to the capital chain of Ukraine's shipbuilding industry began to break, and more and more shipbuilding workers, technicians and even managers began to receive wages.
Soon, a large-scale outflow of technical talents began, and many former Soviet naval technicians were tempted by the Western world to resolutely throw themselves into the arms of the United States, while some of the remaining technicians rushed to warm China. Most of the remaining technicians who did not leave Ukraine chose to change careers and work hard, after all, people want to eat. In the past and back, this tide, which Americans call "industry degradation", completely destroyed Ukraine's glorious shipbuilding industry system.
Rusty Glorious-class cruiser
The tide of bankruptcy swept through Ukraine, a large number of companies in the shipbuilding industry system began to liquidate or transform, and the entire Ukrainian shipbuilding industry system almost collapsed, with losses of more than 90%. Against this backdrop, the Ulyanovsk aircraft carrier could never be completed, the Varyag was sold to China, and a large number of half-built or even near-completed warships, including the Glory class, were abandoned in ports or docks, and the Ukrainian authorities could not help themselves, but could only watch them rust.
In 2014, russia forcibly annexed Crimea, and Ukraine's shipbuilding industry was hit hard again – the shipyards of Sevastopol and Simferopol became Russian industries, and these shipyards were precisely the units responsible for auxiliary ship production, repair and research and development. However, this is not so important for Ukraine, because at this time Ukraine is completely in a state of broken cans.
Ukraine has lost a range of subsystem-related industries such as marine automation systems, composite materials, marine fiberglass, marine diesel engine maintenance, etc. On the surface, there are still 13 shipbuilding enterprises left in Ukraine, but in fact, the capital ships of the Ukrainian Navy have not only degenerated into patrol gunboats, but also have to be imported from abroad, which shows how far the Ukrainian shipbuilding industry has fallen.
The main force of the Ukrainian Navy was left with only patrol gunboats
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="72" > awkward Russia</h1>
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Ukrainian shipbuilding industry has completely become an international joke, but how good can Russia be? Russia has the fourth longest coastline in the world, with a total length of 37,653 km. Therefore, Russia needs to maintain a strong surface fleet, then a strong and complete shipbuilding industry is indispensable.
However, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, the shipbuilding industry in the Black Sea region fell into the hands of Ukraine, leaving only three regions of Russia to use.
Russia struggled to maintain a surface fleet
The largest St. Petersburg Admiralty Shipyard, whose main job was to build submarines rather than surface ships, could not meet the needs of the Russian Navy; the Baltic Naval Shipyard, which could build large surface combat ships and had built Kirov-class nuclear-powered cruisers, had a broken capital chain, and like Ukraine, a large number of technicians were forced to flee abroad or switch to a livelihood, and the shipyard could only make a living by taking orders from some commercial ships, or at least keep the factory and dock.
The situation of the last northern shipyard is relatively better because of its small size and less economic impact, the shipyard was originally built for surface combat ships, but the size of the shipyard is very limited, there is only one floating dock, not to mention nuclear-powered aircraft carriers, and even "quasi-aircraft carriers" such as amphibious assault ships cannot be built.
The Kuznetsov is being repaired with a rusty floating dock
Lacking enough surface ships, Russia even thought about spending a billion rubles to buy a Ukrainian-class guided-missile cruiser of the Glory class, which was built by the Ukrainian Nikolaev Shipyard and was nearing completion. However, due to the escalation of contradictions between Russia and Ukraine, Russia spent several years trying to persuade Ukraine to sell the ship, and finally the Ukrainians decided to dismantle the weapons on the ship and finally sold it as scrap iron.
The collapse of the Soviet Union severely damaged Russia's economy, which directly led to the Russian shipbuilding industry achieving almost no development for more than a decade, and even regressing. As a result, the size of the Russian navy fleet has shrunk by nearly half, 60% of the naval aviation has been sent home, and strategic nuclear submarines have gone out to sea once a year or even never cruised. This slump continued until 2002, when it began to pick up slightly.
The Center of Gravity of the Russian Navy shifted to nuclear submarines
With its current economic strength and shipbuilding industry alone, Russia had to abandon the maintenance of a powerful surface fleet and concentrate all its forces on developing strategic nuclear submarines to maintain strategic deterrence. According to statistics, the average age of Russian Navy ships is nearly 30 years, of which large surface combat ships of more than 7,000 tons are more than 20 years old, and the average age of large landing ships is as high as 34 years.
The Russian Navy still did not give up its "blue-water ambitions" and reluctantly built the Admiral Gorshkov-class frigate, but from the long construction cycle of the ship's project in 2006 and the first ship was not commissioned until 2018, it can be seen that It is difficult for Russian surface ships to return to the world's first echelon.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="73" > Red Navy lament</h1>
Indeed, while Ukraine and Russia are facing completely different situations, the reasons for the deterioration of the situation are the same.
During the period of the Soviet Red Navy, the powerful Red Navy was accumulated by countless Soviet technicians, revitalized by the government and military leadership, and supported by strong economic forces. But after the collapse of the Soviet Union, these factors all turned into an economic crisis, the collapse of the industrial chain, the loss of technical talent... Neither Russia nor Ukraine, nor any of the former Soviet states, is likely to reinvigorate the Red Navy.
A poignant story reflects the plight of the shipbuilding industry after the collapse of the Soviet Union. In June 1993, Ukrainian Prime Minister Kuchma and Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Russian Federation Chernomyrkin, while inspecting the Nikolaev Shipyard, asked the director of the plant, Makarov, "whether the Varyag can continue to be built and handed over to Russia with Russian funding."
Varyag on the Bosphorus
Makarov replied, "The Varyag will never be finished... To build the Varyag would require the Soviet Union, the Central Committee of the Party, the Military Industry Commission, the nine Ministries of Defense Industry, six hundred relevant units, eight thousand subsystem factories, and in short, a great country was needed to complete it, and now this great country no longer exists."