Politics Glitches and accidents have marked the lifespan of heavy missile cruiser Peter the Great, one of the ships that forms part of the Russian Army's Northern Fleet that will visit Venezuela soon to conduct exercises with the Venezuelan navy.

The building of the cruiser, initially named after Yuri Andropov, began in 1986; however, due to budgetary restrictions, it was completed as late as in 1996. The vessel is powered by two nuclear reactors of 300 MW each; it is 253 meters long by 28 meters wide; its 727-member crew includes 97 military officers.

During his inaugural journey a steam tube was broken due to defective welding, resulting in four sailors dead.

On August 2000, the ship acted as target of submarine Kursk-141 in a war exercise that turned out to be a tragedy -a burst sank the submersible and the crew could not be rescued.

In subsequent exercises on February 17th, 2007 in the Barents Sea, the cruiser was set to repel the attack of Northern Fleet submarines, but their shots failed.

Later, on March 23rd, 2004, Naval Chief of Staff Vladimir Kuroyedov reported that Peter the Great had moved to dock PD-50 to be repaired, because its reactors "could explode at any time."

However, on that very day, Kuroyedov changed his mind and claimed that the nuclear safety service was all right and only the vessel quarters were deteriorated. It was made known that the ship was really repaired on August 2004.

Translated by Conchita Delgado