Just as I noticed that we haven't heard anything about the Bulava tests for a while, we got a report from Sevmash that the Dmitri Donskoy submarine returned to the port after spending about a month at sea.

It appears that I guessed it about right last time - no Bulava launch was planned during this trip. As far as I can tell, the test launches would be resumed only in 2009. The exact purpose of the current sea trial is not quite clear - it looks like the boat underwent some significant modernization. I'm wondering if that was a launch tube modification.