It's Navy Day -- In Russia

The Russian Navy, and especially their submarine arm, hasn't had much to cheer about lately -- most recently, the radioactive spill they had during a submarine nuclear defueling that was in the news to help them look incompetent. Still, that isn't stopping them from celebrating Russian Navy Day today by talking up the future of their submarine fleet:

A next-generation submarine will enter service with the Russian Northern Fleet in the foreseeable future, the country's naval commander says.
The submarine "is expected to join the Northern Fleet a little later than we would like it to be the case, but in the very near future," Adm. Vladimir Masorin said. He said construction of the submarine was nearing completion, Novosti reported Saturday. He said Wednesday sea trials of a new nuclear missile submarine were scheduled for 2007.
The Yury Dolgoruky, a Borey-class nuclear missile submarine, is being built at the Sevmash plant in the northern Arkhangelsk Region, Novosti said. It will be equipped with the Bulava ballistic missile, which is adapted from the Topol-M (SS-27).
President Vladimir Putin said in March a fourth-generation submarine armed with Bulava missiles would form the core of an entire fleet of modern submarines.
He said Russia's submarine fleet was a major instrument of Russia's defense policy.

The "a little later" the Russian CNO is talking about is a 1 year delay from a schedule announced 15 months ago -- not exactly evidence of good planning on the part of the Russians. I expect that the first Borey-class boat will actually make it to the fleet sometime before 2010, but I'm not so sure about any of the two reported follow-ups actually hitting the water in the foreseeable future.

Maybe the delay is because the Russian shipyard workers have been suffering from "heat exhaustion", just like people in other industries...