The Russian Navy has confirmed that it has decommissioned its strategic nuclear-powered submarine, the Dmitry Donskoy, which formed part of a formidable Cold War weapons arsenal that Moscow once relied on.
The American newspaper Newsweek, which reported the news, indicated that many speculations have been circulating for months about the fate of the submarine, which entered military service in 1980 and is called "Typhoon" by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
And the Russian state news agency (Tass) had reported in 2021 that the submarine would remain in service until 2026, but its last activity was monitored in September 2022.
The giant submarine "Dmitry Donskoy", which is 574 feet long, was the largest nuclear submarine in the world until last year, before it was surpassed by the "Belgorod" nuclear submarine, also known as the 608-foot-long Doomsday submarine, which Moscow entered into military service in July. July 2022.
Vladimir Maltsev, head of the Russian Movement for Naval Support, told TASS news agency on Monday that the submarine has been "decommissioned" and will be used at a naval base in Severodvinsk along with two other units of the same fleet.
The "Dmitry Donskoy" was the first of six submarines in the Russian Northern Fleet that Moscow entered service in the 1980s and was stationed in the White Sea.
It is noteworthy that Moscow announced last year the entry of the "Belgorod" submarine into military service, after it was hiding it to control the North Pole, but it rushed to introduce what is known as the "mother of submarines" into service after its naval forces recently received it.
Russian President Vladimir Putin personally supervises the work of the new submarine, and it is capable of wiping out entire cities within minutes.