Admiral Ushakov

Kirov is the lead ship of the of nuclear-powered guided missile cruisers. Originally built for the Soviet Navy and passed onto the succeeding Russian Navy, she and her three sister ships are the largest and heaviest surface combatant warships (i.e. not an aircraft carrier or amphibious assault ship) built by them. The Soviet classification of the ship-type is "heavy nuclear-powered guided missile cruiser", nonetheless Kirovs size and weapons complement have earned her the unofficial designation of a battlecruiser throughout much of the world, as her size and displacement is similar to a typical World War I battleship. The appearance of the Kirov class was a significant factor in the U.S. Navy recommissioning the . She was named after a Project 26 cruiser (named after Sergey Kirov, a Bolshevik hero). History She was laid down on 27 March 1974, at the Baltiysky Naval Shipyard in Leningrad, launched on 26 December 1977, and commissioned on 30 December 1980, part of Soviet Northern Fleet. When she appeared for the first time in 1981, NATO observers called her BALCOM I (Baltic Combatant I). Her first major deployment was in 1984 where she undertook a voyage to the Mediterranean Sea. During her second major deployment from 1 December 1989 to 17 February 1990 to the Mediterranean, she suffered a reactor accident. Afterwards, she was placed in reserve. Repairs were never carried out, due to lack of funds and the changing political situation in the Soviet Union. She may have been cannibalized as a spare-parts cache for the other ships in her class.