The Russian navy according to the Dutch newspaper Het Vaderland: staat- en letterkundig nieuwsblad morning edition dated 29 June 1938

The Kirov

This Dutch newspaper published a quite extensive item dealing with the Russian naval shipbuilding program apparently using tidings from Riga published in the newspaper The Times. Within short time was the cruiser Kirov to be added to the Baltic fleet being the first Russian cruiser entirely built by a Russian yard. She measured around 8,000 ton and was launched in 1936 at Leningrad. The building of 3 comparable cruisers (the Koojbyjew and the Ordjonikidze, the 3rd still not baptized) was still going on. The Russian shipyards built already a large number of smaller warships in particular submarines and completed capital warships of which the building started for the revolution. Between 1917 and 1923 were no efforts done to strengthen the fleet and afterwards the work just slowly continued lacking skilled leadership. In the end of 1932 were 3 light cruisers and a number of submarines completed of which the building all ready started before the revolution. The British submarine L 55 sunk in 1919 by Kronstad was salvaged, repaired and added to the fleet. In 1933-1934 became the building of submarines a serious issue. It was known that a large number was build and not only at the yards of Leningrad. Afterwards was the building of large submarines of 1.000-1.500 ton started to serve on the high seas and which were mainly stationed in the new ice free harbour Murmansk. Last year claimed Russian authorities that these submarines broke the world record for long distance voyages without giving any specification. Probably were between the 30 and 40 submarines stationed at Murmansk. In 1936 was the building started of large destroyers of 3.000 ton of which the Leningrad and Minsk are completed and already in active service. These destroyers were built with Italian engineers as supervisors. When the advices of these engineers not longer were needed were they arrested and banned outside the Soviet Union. The same engineers played also an important roll in the building of the Kirov. The new Russian warships seemed to be build for long distances and are all fast but quite light armoured. They possessed over a large oil bunker capacity and carried mines and most ships also one or two planes. The Dnepr-flotilla seemed also to be considerable strengthened.

A main problem is the lacking of experienced officers while in the last year quite a lot of them were arrested as enemy of the state and executed. Among them were the admiral Orlow, his deputy admiral Vikotorow (despite becoming in December parliament member) and the commanding officers of the four fleets: Siwkow of the Baltic, Kozanow of the Black Sea, Kirejew of the Pacific ad Jesjenow of the Northern Seas. There were also 3 river flotillas namely in the Caspian Sea and on the Dnepr and the Amur. The commanding officers of these flotillas and the chief of the naval academy were also removed from their posts. Also within the corps of officers with lower ranks were many removed with as result that within the navy the same nervous feeling was as within the Red Army since the reorganisation started a year earlier.