Russian newspaper Interfax reported the new developments at Severnoye, which is part of the country's state-owned United Shipbuilding Corporation, on Apr. 18. The information was reportedly contained in an annual review of the shipbuilder's activities in 2019, which the outlet had obtained.

Russia's Severnoye Design Bureau has stopped development entirely of its Project 23560 destroyers , also known as the Lider class, and the Project 22350M frigate, an expanded derivative of the Project 22350 Admiral Gorshkov class. The company has said these ships are among its most promising future offerings and the halting of the two programs has raised questions about its long-term financial stability.

The Lider destroyer, also referred to at times as the Shkval, was clearly an extremely ambitious project, perhaps overly so, from the very beginning. Though originally intended to be a conventionally powered warship, plans subsequently shifted to a nuclear-powered design. Its expected displacement also grew from already massive 12,000 to 13,000 tons to 19,000 tons , stretching its classification as a "destroyer."

The Project 23560 project first emerged publicly in 2015, but had reportedly been in development for two years already by then. The Krylov State Scientific Center had been responsible for the actual design, which Severnoye would then build.

For comparison, the U.S. Navy's Flight III Arleigh Burke class destroyers will have a displacement of around 9,800 tons, equal to that of its Ticonderoga class cruisers. That service's Zumwalt class stealth destroyers are closer to 16,000 tons. At a displacement of 19,000 tons, size-wise, the Liders would be around halfway between more traditional destroyers and the Soviet-era nuclear-powered Kirov-class battlecruisers, which have a displacement of 28,000 tons with a full combat load.

The Project 23560 design featured an especially heavy armament, including a vertical launch system array with 64 3S14 universal cells capable of firing various weapons, including Kalibr land-attack cruise missiles and Oniks supersonic anti-ship cruise missiles. The still-in-development hypersonic 3M22 Zircon cruise missile is also reportedly being designed to work with the 3S14 cell dimensions. The ships would also have a 56-cell navalized variant of the S-500 surface-to-air missile system, as well as separate launchers for the medium-range Redut surface-to-air missile and navalized Pantsir-M point-defense systems.

As of 2019, the estimated cost of each Project 23560 destroyer was 100 billion rubles, or around $1.5 billion at the time, which is cheaper than what the U.S. Navy spent on its much smaller, conventionally-powered late-model Flight II Arleigh Burkes. This seems exceptionally low for a ship of this size and complexity and would seem to conflict with the fact that high costs had contributed to the Russian government's previous decision to put the project on hold back in 2017. There were continued reports that the Kremlin still planned to begin building the first of these ships in 2022 or 2023, but Severnoye's 2019 report makes it clear that all work on the project has now stopped.

It's unclear how serious Russia ever was about pursuing the Lider destroyer and it may turn out that Severnoye's reported halt on work on the Project 22350M frigate may actually have greater impacts on the future of the Russian Navy, as well as that of the shipyard. The shipbuilder only reportedly finished work on the ship's design in March 2019.

The Project 22350M design is a major upgrade of the existing Project 22350 Admiral Gorshkov class featuring a larger hull with 48 vertical launch system cells and a displacement of around 7,000 tons. The first-in-class Admiral Gorshkov, which is in service now and is arguably the Russian Navy's most modern warship, displaces 5,400 tons and has 16 vertical launch system cells. These are all capable of firing Kalibr and Oniks cruise missiles, and are expected to eventually be able to accommodate Zircon in the future.