On July 21, 2025, the Nampho Shipyard in North Korea held a mobilization meeting for the third "Choe Yong-rim" class destroyer, announcing that the ship would be launched in October 2026, with a total construction period of only 14 months. To ensure completion within the schedule, Kim Chol-won, a member of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea, personally supervised the project, and workers worked in 24-hour shifts, carrying out parallel construction of sections.

This speed far exceeds international norms. China takes 18 months to build an 052D-class destroyer, while the United States is not even mentioned—previously, one "Arleigh Burke"-class destroyer took 20 months, and now I don't know how many months it takes, but at least two years are needed. As for Russia... the 22350-class frigate, watch closely, it's a frigate, the first ship took 12 years, and you might think you're building an aircraft carrier.

Speaking of which, Russia is just preparing to dismantle its aircraft carrier. As everyone knows, the Russian aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov finally couldn't hold on and had to be dismantled. At that time, Russia wasn't without the chance to save the ship; if they had set aside their pride and face, and let China help, the ship would have probably been saved.

But to be honest, I really don't know what face they have left. The current Russian shipbuilding capability is not only worse than China's, but even lags behind North Korea's.

The plight of Russia's shipbuilding industry is exposed by data. In 2024, the Russian Navy received only 12 new ships, and the civilian shipbuilding capacity was 300,000 tons, which is 1/17 and 1/100 of China's. The third ship of the 22350-class frigate, "Admiral Golovko," has been under construction since 2012 and has not yet been commissioned. The main reason for the delay is the high failure rate of the domestic M90FR gas turbine at 37%. This engine is actually a copy of the Ukrainian UGT-15000 model from thirty years ago. More ironically, the radar system used on the North Korean "Choe Yong-rim" class directly reverse-engineered the design of the Russian 22350-class frigate, but compressed the construction period to one-tenth of Russia's.

The reason for this situation is most typically due to a serious technical break. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia lost the large shipbuilding capabilities of the Nikolayev Shipyard in Ukraine. The only shipyard in the country capable of building vessels over 100,000 tons, the Zvezda Shipyard, still uses rolling machines from the 1980s with an error margin of over 2%, leading to cracks in the pressure hull of the 885M nuclear submarine. To replace the Ukrainian gas turbines, Russia spent 30 years to achieve the domestication of the UGT-15000, while China completed the domestication of the Ukrainian UGT-25000 technology in 11 years and promoted the "shipbuilding marathon" of the navy. Now, North Korea, through Russian technical assistance, obtained a ship propulsion system that allows a 5,000-ton destroyer to reach 30 knots, surpassing the 29 knots of the current Russian 22350-class frigate.

The financial crisis has further worsened the decline of Russia's shipbuilding industry. The Russian Navy's budget accounts for only 20% of the total military budget (about 14 billion USD), but it must maintain both nuclear submarines and surface fleets. The maintenance cost of the Admiral Kuznetsov aircraft carrier exceeded 2.1 billion USD, enough to build two Chinese 075-class amphibious assault ships, but the aircraft carrier has only been in service for six years. North Korea, on the other hand, concentrates resources through the "military industry priority" strategy, diverting civilian steel quotas for shipbuilding, even transferring teacher pensions into a special fund for shipbuilding, reducing the cost of a single ship to 3 billion USD, only 44% of the cost of a similar Russian ship.

In addition, Russia made wrong choices when building its naval fleet, which is also an important reason. Strategic choices have exacerbated imbalance. Putin admitted at the "Shipbuilder Day" in July that he needs to solve the problems of "equipment renewal" and "talent training", but the Russian "Naval Strategy until 2050" still allocates resources to nuclear submarines, giving only 15% of the budget to the surface fleet.

North Korea implements a "dual-track approach": accelerating the construction of destroyers capable of carrying tactical nuclear missiles, while advancing the 8,000-ton nuclear submarine project. South Korean media found that the construction progress of the nuclear submarine dock at the Sinpo Shipyard in North Korea is twice as fast as that of the Northern Shipyard in Russia.

Russian media has repeatedly proposed purchasing Chinese warships to fill the power gap, but the government is concerned about the impact on domestic defense groups, so they choose to directly seek help from France. They are preparing to purchase the Mistral-class amphibious landing ships from France to strengthen their navy. The shipbuilding contract was already negotiated, but it fell through under Western secondary sanctions.

Russia has repeatedly made irreversible mistakes in strategic choices, causing their shipbuilding industry to now be reduced to the third tier in the world. Before protecting their face, isn't protecting the substance more important?

Original article: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7531621762509849126/

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