Only one carrier of any class in their navy, and that's arguably unoperational.
Among other things, the Russians have still to check on who owns exactly what as far as the Crimea and the Black Sea are concerned: Russia or the new Ukraine: so responsibilities for port facilities are often in doubt.
The Kuznetsov's sister-ship: was the Tbilisi (then Georgia went) and became Admiral Gorshkov, was at the heart of a long and sorry saga of negotiating a sale with India (you'll find that searching the ship's name).

The interest in the Soviet avaition cruiser programme is that it is a very clear-cut and neat example of how the Soviets' attempts to match the USA as a super-power led inevitably to bankruptcy: what must have been wasted on this line of aborted progammes beggars belief.

ok thx for the clairafaction

Hey correct me if I am wrong but I dont see any catapults on the deck of this beast? Is the ramp capable of generating the lift needed to get the aircraft up?

*sigh* ivan can sure build em pretty.

russian naval air superiority? whats that?

Originally posted by KrazyIvan
russian naval air superiority? whats that?

A commies dream. Or a western nightmare.

Russia has never needed large aircraft carriers.
Her intended theatre of operations was Europe where she would have had land based aircraft that could reach the intended targets.

That's not to say that her results of dabbling with naval aviation have been inferior to the US.
The Kiev class cruisers were way ahead of anything we had at the time.

It will be interesting to see how many of these large carriers Russia develops. They would be an indicator whether she has intentions of working militarily further afield.

[Edited on 26-6-2003 by Leveller]

this carrier is nothing. its comperable to only one of our marine carriers. you know those little carrier like ships that the marines use for helicopters and harriers. thats all it is. a Nimitz class carrier would make that thing its bitch.