Russia used US aid to fund new submarines armed with latest nuclear missiles

Russia is deploying its latest long-range precision strike missiles aboard its newest attack submarine and strategic ballistic missile submarine, Bill Gertz reports. US aid to Russia during the Clinton years enabled Russia to build those submarines, whose newest missiles threaten us today.

“Russia is deploying long-range, precision cruise missiles to the western Atlantic that American defense officials say will allow Moscow to target Washington and other East Coast cities with conventional or nuclear attacks,” Gertz reported January 4 in the Free Beacon.

“Moscow is adding Kalibr land attack cruise missiles to both warships and missile submarines that Moscow plans to use in Atlantic patrols near the United States, sorties that were once routine during the Cold War,” according to Gertz.

This didn’t have to happen. Russia was so impoverished when the next-generation submarines were constructed in the 1990s that Moscow could not have built them without substantial foreign support.

The US, under President Bill Clinton and with bipartisan majorities in Congress, provided that aid directly under an idealistic but strategically foolhardy disarmament program, and indirectly through its backing of billions of dollars in International Monetary Fund loans to the Russian Central Bank.

Worst of all, policymakers were informed of what they were doing, but chose to look the other way.

Today’s Russian missile platforms were built with US aid 20 years ago

The Russian doomsday submarines deploying the Kalibr missile in 2019 were built thanks to misguided United States aid programs from the 1990s. The purpose of the aid, under the Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) program, was to help Moscow safely scrap its obsolete Soviet-era nuclear weapons and delivery systems, including missiles and submarines.

We warned at the time that Moscow would abuse the aid to free up funds to modernize its nuclear weapons triad. Russia could not modernize its forces while remaining within arms control treaty restrictions, unless it dismantled its old weapons first.

The CTR aid, also known as “Nunn-Lugar” aid after senators Sam Nunnn (D-GA) and Dick Lugar (R-IN), also freed up Russia from having to spend its own scarce funds to dismantle the old at a time when it was short of cash to build the new.

The specific class of submarines are the Severodvinsk- or Yasen-class attack sub, and the fourth-generation Borei-class strategic ballistic missile sub (SSBN).

Under construction since 1993, the Yasen-class sub, whose NATO designation is Severodvinsk, stalled repeatedly until the first was commissioned in 2014. The sub is armed with long-range cruise missiles, armed with conventional or nuclear warheads.

The Borei-class submarine had greater priority, replacing Soviet-era Delta 2 and 3 SSBNs and the Typhoon-class sub. It is armed with strategic nuclear missiles and can also be outfitted with long-range cruise missiles with nuclear warheads.

Russia’s nuclear submarine production was crippled for years by funding problems and official corruption. Moscow could not build its new fleet of next-generation submarines without dismantling the old subs, in order for it to comply with its arms-control treaty obligations.

International Monetary Fund cash funded Russian submarine construction

We reported in January, 1998 how the IMF, to which the United States the largest single financial backer, was instrumental to funding the startup construction of both the Borei- and Severodvinsk-class submarines:

“No sooner did the IMF agree earlier this month to release its latest tranche of $667.5 million to Moscow than the Finance Ministry, which lobbied hard for the release, announced the money would be poured into military industry. Citing First Deputy Finance Minister Aleksei Kudrin, Russia’s Interfax news agency reported January 9 that most of the cash ‘will be spent mainly on settling government debt . . . for orders placed with the defense industry.’

“This runs against U.S. interests for four reasons. The IMF loan props up companies owned or controlled by the state. Second, the loan subsidizes a virulently anti-Western political constituency. Third, the money fuels the very sector most responsible for weapons proliferation to rogue regimes. And fourth, the IMF loan is financing the modernization of Russia’s submarines and weapons of mass destruction.”

We described how IMF cash payments into Russia’s central bank went directly to funding the construction of the first Borei-class ballistic missile submarine. We could even track when the IMF funds were scheduled to be transferred, and how a delay affected the keel-laying of the sub, named Yuri Dolgoruki, after the Ukrainian-born founder of Moscow. Here’s what we said:

“With these priorities, what kind of military industry orders might the IMF — and by extension, the American taxpayer — be funding?

“It might be paying for one of First Deputy Prime Minister Anatoly Chubais’s pet projects: the Yuri Dolgoruki. Chubais doesn’t mention the military when asks Washington for more money for economic reform, but the Yuri Dolgoruki is the first in a series of Russia’s fourth-generation nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines.

“In October 1996, Chubais hailed the Yuri Dolgoruki as “a submarine for the next century.” To spur the stalled project along, he announced that he had arranged for the Finance Ministry to free up funds in time for the official keel-laying ceremony at Shipyard No. 402 of the Russian State Center for Nuclear Shipbuilding in Severodvinsk. But the same day, the IMF announced it was postponing its monthly tranches of the $10.2 billion loan, citing Moscow’s inadequate economic policies. The keel-laying ceremony was hastily postponed, supposedly due to inclement weather.

“Finally, on February 7, 1997, the IMF released the money. That very day, the Finance Ministry announced that it had come up with cash to pay the Russian State Center for Nuclear Shipbuilding, averting a strike. Construction of the Yuri Dolgoruki continued. Once in service, the main targets of the submarine’s nuclear missile complement will be American cities. (In the same port, the new Severodvinsk-class of attack submarines has also begun production. Its advanced features are forcing the U.S. Navy to revise its defensive strategy.)

“Perhaps the IMF loan will pay to perfect the SS-NX-28, the next-generation submarine-launched ballistic missile with a range of nearly 5000 miles. The missile will be deployed aboard the Yuri Dolgoruki. The SS-NX-28 underwent its most recent trial last November at a test range near Arkhangelsk, but malfunctions require more testing, and therefore, more money.”

Congress was informed in 1997

After news and analytical coverage in 1995 and 1996, Congress was informed in 1997 of how US aid was helping Russia overcome its financial hardships and continue modernizing its strategic nuclear arsenal. We testified before a House national security panel,

“As it has in most sectors of society, economic hardship has taken its toll on Russia’s strategic modernization program. Nevertheless, with its increased reliance on weapons of mass destruction, Moscow is investing what it can in these expensive programs. They include: the new Topol-M ICBM, the refitting of all Typhoon submarines to launch an upgraded submarine-launched ballistic missile, construction of the first of the Boreas [Borei]-class of ballistic missile submarines to succeed the Typhoon, development of a new air-launched cruise missile, a new multi-role strategic bomber, new generations of nuclear warheads, including miniaturized warheads; new generations of chemical weapons, including the ‘Novichok‘ class of binary nerve agents; and an active biological weapons program.

“In my own research, apart from the chemical and biological weapons programs, I have found the Russian government, the Ministry of Atomic Energy, the Strategic Rocket Forces, and the Military Space Forces to be far more forthcoming about their missile and nuclear warhead modernization initiatives than has the United States government and our own armed forces. Russian authorities even take the trouble to announce their developments, translate them into English, and place them on the Internet for the world to see.

“. . . Significantly, when Mr. Cohen’s predecessor, [Defense Secretary] William Perry, visited Severodvinsk last October to view the dismantling of an obsolete Yankee-class submarine with U.S. aid, he was silent about the new attack submarine and ballistic missile submarine being built in the very same port.“

More than 21 years later, as Bill Gertz reports, that very same Severodvinsk-class submarine is being outfitted with even more modern Kalibr long-range precision cruise missiles that will allow Putin to attack American cities faster and more accurately.