As Russia’s only aircraft carrier collapses, some Russians want to end a shady deal with China 25 years ago.

  • The only Russian aircraft carrier has remained on the sidelines for many years and may no longer take part in hostilities.
  • A Russian MP suggested trying to buy the Chinese aircraft carrier Liaoning as a replacement.
  • The Liaoning started life as a Soviet carrier but was acquired by China in a shady deal in the late 1990s.

Russia’s only aircraft carrier, the Admiral Kuznetsov, is in such poor condition that it’s easier to buy a replacement than to repair it.

In a sign of how low the Russian military had fallen, a Russian politician offered to do just that by buying a Soviet-designed aircraft carrier that was sold to China 25 years ago.

Admiral Kuznetsov was never lucky. Launched in 1985, the 60,000-tonne ship has survived engine failure, numerous fires and strange shipyard accidents. In 2012, it had to be towed to port after it lost steam off the coast of France.

As of 2017, Kuznetsov was under overhaul, and in 2018 she was damaged in a shipyard crane fall, leaving a 200-square-foot hole in her flight deck. This was followed in December 2019 by a major fire that killed at least one person while the ship was undergoing repairs in Murmansk. More recently, a fire in December caused damage that the Russian government described as “minor”.

The Kuznetsov is now in such poor condition that it can neither move under its own power nor be towed due to fears that the vessel could capsize, Ukrainian media reported.

Admiral Kuznetsov off the coast of northern Norway in October 2016. Reuters

“During the inspection of the ship’s hull by diving teams, it was found that the metal structures under the third deck had undergone significant corrosion,” RBC-Ukraine said in a statement. “The holds are completely filled with muddy water, which makes it impossible to inspect the ship from the inside.”

At best, it looks like the carrier is unlikely to return to service in 2024, which is already several years behind schedule.

Meanwhile, Russian MP Sergei Karginov, a member of the Duma Committee on the Far East and the Arctic, proposed an ingenious solution: to buy the former Soviet aircraft carrier Varyag from China.

The Varyag, Admiral Kuznetsov’s sister ship, was still under construction when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. When the ships of the Soviet Black Sea Fleet were divided between Russia and Ukraine, the Ukrainians took possession of the Varyag. Ukraine then sold the unfinished ship for $20 million to a Chinese buyer who said it would be turned into a floating casino.

After the Varyag nearly sank while being towed to China, it ended up in a naval shipyard, where it was fitted out for its original mission. He became the first Chinese aircraft carrier “Liaoning”.

“Varyag” being towed under the Bosphorus bridge in November 2001. REUTERS/Fatih Saribas

Commissioned in 2012, Liaoning now has an air wing of 40 aircraft and helicopters. To add to the strange story, Liaoning is carrying a J-15 fighter jet, an unlicensed Chinese copy of the Russian Su-33 carrier aircraft.

China purchased the Su-33 prototype from Ukraine and then redesigned it to develop the J-15. With some poetic justice, the Chinese copies had a habit of breaking, as the Russian media happily pointed out.

Nevertheless, Liaoning was the nucleus of China’s emerging carrier fleet. Its navy commissioned a second aircraft carrier, the 60,000-ton China-built Shandong, in 2019.

The next was the first Chinese aircraft carrier, Fujian, launched in 2022. The 80,000-ton Fujian is closer in size and capability to the US Navy’s nuclear-powered aircraft carriers.

With China desperately in need of skilled carrier pilots for what could eventually be a fleet of half a dozen carriers, the Liaoning is now considered a training ship.

Karginov, a member of the right-wing Liberal Democratic Party of Russia, proposed renaming the purchased Liaoning in honor of party leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky and making it the new flagship of the Black Sea Fleet.

The Chinese aircraft carrier Liaoning during an exercise in the Western Pacific in April 2018. Stringer via Reuters

“The ship was supposed to become one of the main ones in the USSR,” Karginov said, according to the translation of his speech. “After the collapse of the country, Ukraine chose to sell it for a few bottles of vodka, at the price of scrap metal.”

Karginov may be making fun of Russia’s decline in military power, but his idea is no crazier than Russia’s purchase of any other aircraft carrier.

Historically, Russia was a continental power whose strength lay in its huge army (as in China). The Soviets did build aircraft carriers, but their role was different from that of the US Navy aircraft carriers. Now Russia is faced with the task of not transferring naval aviation to the Mediterranean or the Pacific Ocean. This is a victory over Ukraine, or at least a repulse of fierce Ukrainian counterattacks.

During the war in Ukraine, Russian aviation and naval forces were extremely useless. Its jets are mainly used for long-range attacks, and warships are less active after the sinking of the flagship of the Black Sea Fleet “Moskva”.

A 40-year-old aircraft carrier in the Black Sea is of no particular value. The money would be better spent on new missiles and drones that have proven effective in bombing Ukrainian infrastructure. Russia is a little late to become an aircraft carrier power.

Michael Peck is a columnist whose work has appeared in Forbes, Defense News, Foreign Policy magazine, and more. He has a master’s degree in political science. Follow him on Twitter and LinkedIn.

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