Commodore Stephen Saunders played down fears of a nuclear blast aboard the 25,000 tonne warship, after Russia's navy chief, Admiral Vladimir Kuroyedov, said its condition was so deplorable that "it could explode at any moment".

"Quite what he's found wrong (on the ship), I don't know, but I don't think it has anything to do with nuclear reactor safety," Saunders told AFP in London.

"It sounds to me like there are rather a number of safety issues which need to be resolved on board ... an accumulation of different things, rather than perhaps one catastrophic problem."

Kuroyedov, quoted by the Interfax news agency, said he had ordered the Peter the Great to be docked for two weeks, "during which the ship's commander ... must remove all deficiencies in the ship's upkeep".

The admiral made his damning comments after inspecting the ship last Wednesday during Russian naval exercises in the Barents Sea.

"The ship's condition is fine in those places where admirals walk, but where they don't go everything is in such a state that it could explode at any moment," he said, citing the "upkeep" of the nuclear reactor.

Kuroyedov did not specify the port to which the cruiser was taken, but it is normally based near the northern port of Murmansk, and Saunders believed that that was where the ship would dock.

Jane's Fighting Ships, published every year, is a highly detailed and authoritative review of all the world's navies.

Saunders is a former Royal Navy frigate commander who has also worked in the shipbuilding industry, defence consultancy and at the Royal College of Defence Studies.

He said that, thanks to the oil-driven rebound in the Russian economy, the Russian navy now has more money to rebuild itself after having fallen into a perilous state of disrepair following the collapse of the Soviet Union.

"There has been a major drive over the last year to improve operational effectiveness, major exercises in all three fleets (Black Sea, Pacific and Northern), and a general back-to-sea policy," he said.

It was possible, he added, that by making such a sharp critique of the Peter the Great, Kuroyedov was trying to catch the attention of the Kremlin so as to get even more funds for his navy overall.

Another theory is that the admiral was making an example of the Peter the Great, or giving it "a kick in the backside," to warn other Russian naval captains that they must immediately get their vessels shipshape as well.

On Monday, the RIA Novosti news agency quoted an unnamed navy source as saying that Kuroyedov had deemed Peter the Great's "crew's performance below standard" after observing the latest maneuvers.

WAR.WIRE