Pyotr Velikiy () is the fourth of the Russian Navy. It was initially named Yuri Andropov () after the former General Secretary of the Communist Party, but the ship's name was changed after the fall of the Soviet Union. The Russian designation for the type is "heavy nuclear missile cruiser", but Western defense commentators have resurrected the term "battlecruiser" to describe them, as they are the largest surface "line of battle" warships in the world. Pyotr Velikiy is the flagship of the Northern Fleet. Construction of the ship was delayed by lack of funding due to the national economic problems before and after the fall of the Soviet Union. It was not completed and commissioned until 1998, twelve years after work had started. By then it had been renamed Pyotr Velikiy, Russian for Peter the Great. Pyotr Velikiy has been known to carry two pennant numbers during its service: "183" and currently "099". Service history After completing its acceptance trials in November 1996, the vessel was transferred to the Northern Fleet at Severomorsk and was designated as the flagship of the Northern Fleet. In August 2000, Pyotr Velikiy was in the Barents Sea to oversee the largest naval training exercise in a decade, since the fall of the Soviet Union. The ship was to be the designated target of the Oscar-II class submarine K-141 Kursk, and was conducting evasive maneuvers when communication with Kursk was lost. The submarine was later found to have suffered catastrophic torpedo detonations, resulting in the loss of all 118 crew members. Pyotr Velikiy guarded the area where the submarine sank during the subsequent salvage operation in 2001. In March 2004, Russian Navy Chief Admiral Vladimir Kuroyedov declared Pyotr Velikiy unfit for service due to problems with the ship's engineering maintenance. On 19 April 2004, the cruiser was docked in the floating drydock PD-50 for painting of the underside of the hull, repairs, and examination of the steering system. The repairs were completed later that year, and it was carrying out missions again by August. From September 21 to October 22, 2004 she sailed on her first long voyage. Accompanying the aircraft carrier , the destroyers Admiral Chabanenko and Admiral Ushakov, as well as several auxiliary ships, she went into the north-western Atlantic in what was the largest Russian naval exercise after the end of the Cold War. 2008–2009 On 8 September 2008, it was announced