"Seven submarines of the Borei (type 955) will be built and launched by the navy between now and 2015. The eighth will be received in 2017," the Interfax news agency quoted him as saying.

The Yuri Dolgoruky submarine, launched at the northwestern naval base of Severodvinsk, is the first strategic nuclear submarine built in Russia since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991.

The Bulava missiles can carry 10 nuclear warheads with a range of up to 8,000 kilometres (5,000 miles).