Yantar Class (Project 22010 Class) Russian Intelligence Collection Ship

The Yantar Class is a special purpose intelligence collection ship built for the Russian Navy. The ship has been operated by the Russian Navy's Main Directorate of Underwater Research (GUGI) since 2015 and is reportedly a spy ship. The vessel's home port is Severomorsk, where it is attached to the Northern Fleet. A sister Project 22010-class ship "Almaz" is also under construction. Yantar was designed by the CMDB Almaz Design Bureau in St. Petersburg, and the hull was laid down on 8 July 2010. It was launched in December 2012 and concluded its sea trials in May 2015. The ship has a length of 108 meters (354 ft) and a full displacement of 5,736 tons. It uses diesel-electric propulsion for a top speed of approximately 15 knots (28 km/h; 17 mph). It officially has a complement of 60. The ship was built at the Yantar Shipyard in Kaliningrad. Yantar can act as a mothership to mini-subs. The United States Navy has stated that the submersibles are able to sever cables miles beneath the ocean's surface. The submersibles are reportedly capable of operating at depths of up to 6,000 meters (20,000 ft). The submersibles are reportedly the project 16810 Rus-class submersible and the project 16811 Konsul-class submersible. According to Alexei Burilichev, head of the Russian Defense Ministry's deepwater research department, Yantar is an oceanic research complex. Yantar has been reported in position near undersea telecommunications cables. In 2015, Yantar was spotted off the coast of Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. In summer 2016, Yantar was anchored outside the Nuuk, Greenland. In 2017, Yantar was active in the eastern Mediterranean, near an undersea cable linking Israel to Cyprus. It was also reportedly used to recover "secret equipment" from crashed Su-33 and MiG-29 aircraft. On 23 November 2017, upon order of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Yantar and the specialists of the Russian Navy's 328th expedition search and rescue unit were sent to Argentina's coast to search for the Argentine submarine ARA San Juan that went missing on 15 November 2017. In Summer 2018, she was deployed to the Mediterranean off the Syrian coast. In November 2019, Yantar visited Trinidad and Tobago.