The new submarine’s name will reportedly be “Vladimir Monomach”. The Russian navy command is to take the final decision on the name. Vladimir Monomach ruled in Kiev, then the capital of the Russian state, between 1113 and 1125. He was the father of Yuri Dolgoruky, the founder of Moscow. The Russian navy previously had semi-armoured frigate “Vladimir Monomach”, which perished in 1905.

The other two new Project 955 Borey-class submarines are undergoing construction to be outfitted with the new Bulava missiles, but the operational date for the first vessel was recently postponed by one year to 2007.

The keel of the first fourth-generation Project 935 strategic missile submarine Yuri Dolgoruky was laid down at the Sevmash State Nuclear Ship-Building Centre at Severodvinsk on 2 November 1996. On 19 March 2004 Sevmash laid down a second strategic missile submarine of the Project 955 Borey class. The Aleksandr Nevskiy was designed from the outset to carry a new solid-propellant Bulava missiles.