Now that Vladimir Putin has signaled that he wants Russia to have a new aircraft carrier, officials are working hard to realize that project. But their efforts highlight Moscow’s problems: the new one will be a copy of earlier Soviet designs, and it won’t go to sea until 2030 at the earliest.
The fate of the Admiral Kuznetsov, Russia’s only remaining aircraft carrier that is now in drydock for extensive refitting and possible forced retirement after the recent extensive fire, has long been the subject of bitter reflection by Russians concerned about their country’s naval capacity and mirth among observers of the Russian scene.
Two sources in Russia’s naval yards have told TASS that the future aircraft carrier, which will be nuclear powered, will not represent a breakthrough but rather will be built according to the designs worked up for a Soviet nuclear-powered carrier in the 1980s that was never in fact built.
In reporting this, Oleh Cheslavskyi of the Ukrainian news portal Censoru.net says that everyone should recognize just what this means: “In Russia, there is not one scientific research institute capable of coming up with something new! In the country, there simply are no engineers.” As a result, shipbuilders will use Soviet designs.
Meanwhile, a second article, by Vladimir Tuchkov of the Russian newspaper Svobodnaya pressa, points out that despite the priority the Kremlin has given to this project, Russian yards are not capable of building a new aircraft carrier in less than ten years and that as a result Moscow will only have the Kuznetsov, assuming it comes back, to project power.
(c) EuromaidanPress
“In Russia, there is not one scientific research institute capable of coming up with something new! In the country, there simply are no engineers.” As a result, shipbuilders will use Soviet designs.
Correction! Muscovy will use a 40 year old Ukrainian design. Which if it ever gets built, will be a 50 year old design.
The lazy ruSSo-drunks can’t outsource everything like the USSR used to. They have no friends or allies, just fellow terrorists.
This is nothing but a pipe dream. A bad case of Naval envy. The multi-billion-dollar cost of building a carrier — to say nothing of the additional cost of the air wing and operations , dry dock and the support, screen ships required is so far out of reach for them that it’s laughable.
Good grief, how embarrassing!
The beautiful irony of Russia’s carrier dreams is that there is one country with the design and facilities to build it for them. But Putin just had to have that naval base he already had a 30 year lease on.
Some Master Strategist huh?
Let’s also remember that the Russian naval yard took ten years just to overhaul the Admiral Gorshkov Carrier for the Indian navy and it still is a POS.
That means a new carrier to replace the Admiral Krushednutz, is obsolete now.