Russia's gigantic Typhoon submarines to be scrapped

The world's largest ballistic missile submarines of Project 941 Akula (Shark), known as Typhoon, will be decommissioned before 2014 and used for scrap metal, a source at Russia's Defense Ministry told the Izvestia newspaper.

All three operating submarines of the project - Arkhangelsk, Severstal and Dmitry Donskoi - will thus be destroyed. The Dmitry Donskoi cruiser was previously used as the base for launching Russia's new Bulava ballistic missile.

The decommissioning of the missiles will cost the Russian budget hundreds of millions of rubles, experts said.

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