How far the Sovetsky Soyuz battleships had progressed

Approximate construction figures show how far the Project 23 battleships had progressed. Sovetsky Soyuz was about twenty-one percent complete and Sovetskaya Ukraina nearly eighteen percent, while Sovetskaya Rossiya was less than one percent complete. Some 70,000 rivets used in Sovetskaya Belorussiya's hull plating were found to be inferior. Sovetskaya Gruziya was planned for the Baltic Works but cancelled after the German invasion. The incomplete hulls and construction defects illustrate the difficulties facing the program. The earlier Project 21 design is proposed as the route that could have put a Soviet battleship into service before or during World War II, with Project 23 arriving too late.