New Russian Ballistic Missile Sub to Join Fleet (RIA Novosti)

If you perouse between the russian-ships.info entries, you will see a lot of ships are commisioned all the years between 21 and 31 December, and also a lot of them just on 31 December!!!

I think it should be a case of political targets achieving or similar, also, I suspect by the same reason a lot of them probably are commisioned unfinished!!! (remember too the CVN-77 case: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_George_H.W._Bush_(CVN-77)#Commissioning )

Yes, very common for Russian warships to be commissioned in late December, probably to satisfy political and budgetary masters, and I suspect that you're probably right that many of them were likely not completely fitted out or battle ready.

Russia to Commission 2nd Borey Nuclear Sub on Dec. 23 (RIA Novosti)