In 2009, during the celebration of Russia’s annual Naval Fleet Day, the then-Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Navy, Admiral Vladimir Vysotsky, repeated his promise of the previous year that the Russian Navy would add six aircraft carrier battle groups to its complement of warships.
Construction of these ships was supposed to have commenced thirteen years ago, in 2012.
The Admiral said three of the carrier battle groups would be assigned to the Northern Fleet and the other three to the Pacific Fleet. These would be full-up task forces comprising not only the carriers themselves but also all the other vessels required to support them and form a screen to protect them from mines and submarines.
Anyone who has been paying attention since knows that no construction on any such six carriers has ever begun. The lone aircraft carrier in the Russian fleet, the Admiral Kuznetsov, which was built at the end of the Soviet era, has spent most of its life in service undergoing repairs and is currently still being serviced, with no end in sight.
Casualties of Putin’s Kleptocracy and Aircraft Carriers
Suggestions are that in President Vladimir Putin’s kleptocratic Russia, the ship stands an excellent chance of not being put to sea anytime soon—if ever.
“There are serious suspicions that corruption is a major factor in the ongoing problems surrounding the aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov, and this aspect is increasingly discussed by experts and the media,” according to an article published last year.
“After more than a decade of delayed repairs and repeated accidents, many in Russia and beyond say the ship’s poor condition is not just due to technical difficulties and outdated technology.
“Internal investigations and sources such as former Russian naval officer Vyacheslav Konovalov state that ‘certain elements of the modernization that cost millions were never actually implemented, and the funds disappeared into someone’s pockets.’ Allegations of inflated budgets and artificially extended repair times cast a shadow over the ship’s long-term maintenance.”
Even in the best of economic circumstances, Russia constructing multiple aircraft carriers is inconceivable. Such huge outlays would draw all funding away from other branches of the Russian military.
Production lines for almost every other weapon system would have ground to a halt – sacrificed for the sake of building carriers and the aircraft to fly off them. Given that so much of Moscow’s defense outlays have been pilfered by corrupt officials in past years, there is little chance the money for any carriers would have survived.
Shipbuilding Woes for Russian Navy
In today’s Russia, building and operating aircraft carrier battle groups is not only impossible but even the far smaller task of building new ships to replace the smaller vessels that are worn out and well beyond their service life is out of the question.
An analysis in the same year by the authoritative Moscow-based weekly, the Independent Military Review (NVO), entitled “BMF RF (Naval Military Fleet of the Russian Federation) on Foreign Warships,” outlined 19 years ago how and why the Russian Navy was in a state of irreversible collapse.
The analysis states that the chief cause is the state of the Russian shipbuilding industry, which is incapable “of producing warships in either the quantity or at the level of quality that the navy customer requires.” According to those interviewed, the Russian Navy’s leadership “understands that this is a hopeless situation and is looking for a way out by considering the purchase of naval vessels from abroad.”
Only an appreciation of Russia’s shipbuilding industry’s history, which has its antecedents in the time of Peter the Great, would permit an adequate comprehension of how its fortunes have fallen. Moreover, major portions of what used to be part of the Soviet shipbuilding capacity have been part of Ukraine since 1991 and no longer belong to Moscow.
Among the many facilities in Ukraine are the famous Nikolayev shipyards, where all of the carriers ever built in the USSR—including the Kuznetsov—were constructed. The fact that Russian shipbuilding has deteriorated to a point where it cannot even replace shops that are past retirement age is one matter.
Admiral Kuznetsov. Image Credit: Creative Commons.
Admiral Kuznetsov, Russia’s last aircraft carrier. Image Credit: Creative Commons.
Admiral Kuznetsov Aircraft Carrier. Image Credit: Creative Commons.
However, no facility in Russia proper retains any “muscle memory” of what is involved in designing and building an aircraft carrier, which puts the idea of any new such vessels ever entering service with Moscow’s Navy firmly out of reach.
In 1994, Russian Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev declared that the Russian Navy “will fully retain its role as a factor determining Russia’s might as a great power … The decommissioning of obsolete ships will be combined with efforts to equip the Navy with modern hardware. The ships flying the St. Andrew’s ensign should embody the most advanced achievements of Russian science and technology.”
As eloquent and high-minded as the former Foreign Minister, he could not even speak the truth. The idea of a powerful Russian navy with a fleet of aircraft carriers was—and still is—no more than a pipe dream.
About the Author: Reuben F. Johnson
Reuben F. Johnson is a survivor of the February 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine and is an Expert on Foreign Military Affairs with the Fundacja im. Kazimierza Pułaskiego in Warsaw. He has been a consultant to the Pentagon, several NATO governments and the Australian government in the fields of defense technology and weapon systems design. Over the past 30 years he has resided in and reported from Russia, Ukraine, Poland, Brazil, the People’s Republic of China and Australia.
