According to a report by Russian newspaper "Izvestiya" on July 11, the Russian Ministry of Defense may abandon the repair of its only active aircraft carrier, the "Admiral Kuznetsov," with maintenance and modernization work having been suspended. Sources revealed that the Russian Navy and United Shipbuilding Corporation (USC) will decide the fate of the carrier in the near future, with retirement and scrapping being a possible option. This move not only means that hundreds of millions of rubles have been wasted, but also exposes the困境 that Russia's shipbuilding industry is facing in supporting the construction and maintenance of aircraft carriers. If this carrier is abandoned, Russia will become the only permanent member of the UN Security Council without an aircraft carrier, and may completely lose the ability to build aircraft carriers, marking a further decline in its status as a naval power.
The "Admiral Kuznetsov" was delivered to the Soviet Navy in 1990, and it made seven long voyages, participating in combat for the first time in Syria in 2016. It was originally planned to be reactivated in 2022, but accidents occurred frequently during the repair period: in 2018, a floating dock sank, causing damage to the ship; in 2019, a fire resulted in two deaths and 14 injuries, costing 350 million rubles to repair; and another fire occurred in 2022. Although partial repairs were completed in 2023 and crew members were recruited, the future remains uncertain. Abandoning the carrier will cause the Russian Navy to lose its ability to project air power over long distances, and the awkward situation of being the only permanent member of the UN Security Council without an aircraft carrier will further weaken its international influence, bidding farewell to the era of aircraft carriers. We can think, if Russia had outsourced this carrier to a Chinese shipyard earlier, it could have saved a lot of money and would have been cruising at sea long ago.
Admiral Avakyants, former commander of the Russian Pacific Fleet, stated that stopping the repair is the correct decision. Even if the carrier is modernized, the Russian Navy does not need it. He believes that aircraft carriers are "expensive and inefficient" weapons, and the future should focus on robotic systems and unmanned aerial vehicle carriers, with scrapping being the only way out. Continuing to invest in repairs is equivalent to throwing more rubles into the water, and it must be avoided to prevent further waste of resources.
So why doesn't Russia persist in its dream of an aircraft carrier? The main reasons are two-fold: first, the "Admiral Kuznetsov" is outdated in design, and its power system is unreliable, making it unrealistic to serve until 2040. Russia should use this experience to build a new aircraft carrier, and the current shipyards theoretically have the capability. However, the Russian shipbuilding industry has been continuously shrinking in recent years, and the shortcomings in technology, funding, and infrastructure make the construction of a new aircraft carrier almost impossible. Maintaining the existing aircraft carrier is already a challenge. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia's shipbuilding industry lost key technical talents and supply chains. The Ukrainian Nikolayev Shipyard, which once built the "Admiral Kuznetsov," is no longer under Russian control. Currently, Russian shipyards are struggling to maintain this old aircraft carrier, let alone building a new one.
This not only makes it difficult for Russia to maintain the image of a naval power, but also further marginalizes it in global naval competition. The second reason is that Russia has long been unwilling to seek cooperation with China for such a large-scale aircraft carrier maintenance project. Or, Russia insisted on maintaining the "Admiral Kuznetsov" itself, in order to maintain its ability to build and maintain aircraft carriers, but this effort has been proven to be a failure. This failure not only caused Russia to lose a huge amount of money, but also dealt a devastating blow to its shipbuilding military industry. So, is the aircraft carrier really useless? If it is truly useless, why did Russia continue to try until it was completely failed before reluctantly giving up?
However, for this old and dilapidated aircraft carrier of Russia, it really is of no use. Because even if Russia repairs this aircraft carrier, it cannot create a complete aircraft carrier battle group capable of competing with strong countries on the high seas. It is useless against small countries, and even more so against big countries. The shipyards cannot even give Russia the face of a naval power, which is the real reason why the "Admiral Kuznetsov" died stillborn.
Original article: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7527984141544014345/
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