The Russian Navy with state-owned nuclear power company Rosatom decided canceling planned service-life extensions and modernization on its two legendary nuclear-powered Kirov-class battlecruisers or heavy missile cruisers, according to Izvestiya newspaper.

According to media reports in recent weeks, the Russian Navy has decided to recycled two heavy nuclear battlecruisers of Kirov-class – the Admiral Ushakov and the Admiral Lazarev owing to funding shortfalls.

In 2021, it is planned to scrap of the heavy missile cruisers Admiral Ushakov (factory number 800) of the project 1144 and Admiral Lazarev (factory number 801) of the project 11442 for a long time already withdrawn from the Russian Navy.

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It is planned to allocate 400 million rubles ($6,27 million) for the recycled of the first, the second – 350 million rubles ($5,49 million).

The Kirov-class battlecruiser, also know as Orlan-class cruisers, is a class of nuclear-powered warship of the Russian Navy, the largest and heaviest surface combatant warships (i.e. not an aircraft carrier or amphibious assault ship) in operation in the world.

The Kirov-class battlecruisers were designed to neutralize American carrier battle groups during warfare. A secondary mission of the Kirov class was as commerce raider, designed to cut the flow of American and Canadian ground reinforcements to the battleground in Europe.

Total built four ships: Admiral Ushakov, Admiral Lazarev, Admiral Nakhimov and Pyotr Velikiy. Pyotr Veliky currently serves as the flagship of the Russian Northern Fleet. The same-class Admiral Nakhimov cruiser is currently undergoing an upgrade and is due to reach navy ranks in 2021.

In 2014 Russian Navy planned to modernize and returned to service of all four ships.