He expressed this opinion on Espreso.
"Two ships are being prepared for launching at the Zelenodolsk shipyard in Tatarstan near Kazan, one of which is a small missile ship Karakut, which is a regular carrier of Kalibrs, and they are being built on the Volga River, which is their standard place where they build these ships, patrol ships of the Bykov type and small missile ships of the Buyan-M type. The fact is that it takes a long time between the launch and the moment they enter service, i.e., are assigned to the navy (both ships were assigned to the Black Sea Fleet). As for the Karakut, the average time between launching and entering service is two years, while for a patrol ship like the Bykov, the time is less - less than 9 months," explained the editor-in-chief of Defence Express.
According to Katkov, the Project 22160 patrol ship Vasily Bykov, called Viktor Veliky, is not a carrier of Kalibrs and is therefore unlikely to be sent to Ukraine's maritime borders, but it is not impossible.
"The meaning of its stay there is extremely limited, it will be used at most as a floating battery, because it does not even have its own air defense system, and the only air defense there is a sailor with an Igla MANPADS, which is why the enemy is putting Torg MANPADS on the helipad, as if it were a land-based version. That is, the launching of these ships in Tatarstan on the Volga River, from where they can be transferred either to the Baltic, the Caspian flotilla, or the Black Sea via a network of rivers and canals, is indeed a rather long period," the military expert summarized.