Intelligence Ships: Yuri Ivanov Class

[Brian James]

Lead Ship,Intelligence Ship RFS Yuri Ivanov pictured on sea trials.
She is a new type of Russian intelligence collection ship. The ship is designed by the JSC "Central Design Bureau Iceberg". The displacement of the ship is more than 4,000 tons, the cruising range not less than 8 thousand miles and its armament consists of light anti-aircraft weapons. The ship on its performance characteristics and capabilities is considerably superior to similar vessels of previous generations mainly due to the versatility and high level of automation and systems integration.The vessels of this Class are designed for providing communication. The first ship, the Yuriy Ivanov, was laid down in 2004 and was launched on September 30th 2013. The second ship,RFS Ivan Khurs, was launched on May 16th 2017.Russia plans to build at least four such ships by 2020.