Russian budget has not been able to come with funding for dismantling, and the representatives of Zvezdochka now hope the necessary project money could be obtained within the Global Partnership, Arnews.ru reported.
The dismantling of the Admiral Ushakov was originally planned to start already in 1999. However, a group of MPs engaged heavily in the case, trying to rescue the vessel from becoming scrap metal. They established a fund aimed at raising money for the cruisers upgrade, but it did not help to save the nuclear cruiser.
Now, the engineering company Onega has got the task to elaborate a plan on dismantling. No similar vessel has ever been decommissioned and dismantled in Russia and the project is believed to offer major technical difficulties. Experts from the Zvezdochka plant believe that at least 40 million USD will be needed to complete the project. The Global Partnership was organised in 2002 with the aim of allocating 20 billion USD to international nuclear security and clean-up projects.