Russia's first Project 11356 frigate, the Admiral Grigorovich, will join the Black Sea Fleet in 2014, Vice-Admiral Alexander Fedotenkov said on Monday.

“The newest Project 11356 escort ship, the Admiral Grigorovich, should be launched in 2013 and join the Black Sea Fleet in 2014,” Fedotenkov said.

The Kaliningrad-based Yantar shipyard is to build a total of six Project 11356 frigates for delivery between 2014 and 2016 under a contract with the Defense Ministry.

The lead warship in the series, the Admiral Grigorovich, was laid down in December 2010, the second, the Admiral Essen, in July 2011 and the third, the Admiral Makarov, in February 2012.

The Project 11356 frigates, displacing 3,850 tons, are designed for anti-surface and anti-submarine warfare, both independently and as an escort, and are also armed with air defense systems.

The class are armed with an eight-cell launcher for Kalibr and Klub (3M54E) anti-ship and surface-to-surface missiles, a 100-mm main gun, Kashtan gun/missile close-in air defense systems, Shtil vertical-launch air defense missile systems, two torpedo tubes, an anti-submarine rocket system and a Ka-28 or Ka-31 helicopter, according to globalsecurity.org and rusnavy.com.

The Indian Navy received two Talwar class frigates, based on the 11356 design, in April and November last year, Times of India reported.

Third Indian Frigate Undergoes Dock Trials in Russia

A Talwar class frigate being built for the Indian Navy at the Yantar Shipyard in Russia’s exclave of Kaliningrad has begun dock trials, the shipyard said.

The Trikand is the last in a series of three frigates built under a $1.6-billion contract with India. The first frigate, the Teg, was delivered to India in April 2012, while the second, the Tarkash, has completed sea trials and will be delivered in November.

“The Trikand started dock trials at the Yantar shipyard on September 15,” Yantar spokesman Sergei Mikhailov told reporters on Tuesday. “They will continue until mid-January next year.”

The sea trials of the frigate will be held in the Baltic Sea and the delivery of the warship to the Indian Navy is expected in summer 2013.

The new frigates are each armed with eight BrahMos supersonic cruise missiles.

 The Russian-Indian BrahMos supersonic cruise missile

They are also equipped with a 100-mm gun, a Shtil surface-to-air missile system, two Kashtan air-defense gun/missile systems, two twin 533-mm torpedo launchers, and an antisubmarine warfare (ASW) helicopter.

India announced in 2011 that the Yantar shipyard had delayed the delivery of the frigates for over a year due to a shortage of skilled labor and flaws in the production chain.

In a separate development, the delivery of the Vikramaditya, formerly the Russian Navy's Admiral Gorshkov, to the Indian Navy has been put back from December 2012 to at least October 2013 after propulsion failures occurred during the ship’s sea trials in the White Sea last month.

A string of delays on the delivery of military equipment has drawn sharp criticism by Indian authorities and soured traditionally strong bilateral military-technical ties.

Moscow has recently lost several large tenders on the delivery of weaponry to India, which used to be a major buyer of Russian-made military equipment.