Russian Navy Buyan-M class Project 21631 corvette Zelenyy Dol conducts combat mission in Baltic Sea


According to a Tweet of the Russian Ministry of Defense, published on May 4, 2020, Russian Navy Buyan-M class Project 21631 corvette Zelenyy Dol conducts combat training missions in the Baltic Sea.


Russian Navy Buyan M class Project 21631 corvette Zelenyy Dol conducts combat mission in Baltic Sea 925 001 Russian Navy Buyan-M class Project 21631 corvette Zelenyy Dol. (Picture source Russian MoD Twitter account)


The Buyan class, Russian designations Project 21630 Buyan and Project 21631 Buyan-M, are series of corvettes (small artillery and missile ships in Russian classification) developed by Zelenodolsk Design Bureau for the Russian Navy.

The Project 21631 (Buyan-M) corvette is the missile variant of Project 21630 Buyan Class corvette. Three Buyan Class corvettes were built by JSC Almaz Shipbuilding in St. Petersburg. The vessels serve the Caspian Flotilla of the Southern Military District.

The 900-ton class Project 21631 Buyan-M is a stretched version of the 500-ton Buyan class gunboat. The Buyan-M features a larger and more sophisticated weapons payload including state-of-the-art missile systems. The 62-meter longship is intended to perform anti-surface warfare (ASuW) combat missions with secondary air defense capability thanks to four Igla-1M surface-to-air missiles (SAM).

The Buyan-M weapon system consists of a single A-190 100 mm cannon, two AK-630M anti-aircraft guns, eight Club-S Kalibr anti-ship missiles, and four Igla-1M SAMs mounted on a 3M47 Gibka launcher. Besides, these vessels are equipped with different types of small weapons including two 14.5 mm heavy machine guns and three 7.6 2mm machine guns.