Yet another Russian military BIG PLAN that was announced with trumpets has died quietly.
Russia’s single, outdated, and ailing aircraft carrier the Admiral Kuznetsov will spend the next 2-3 years just getting repaired, presumably from wear and tear incurred during its recent deployment off Syria and also probably to fix a backlog of known problems that existed long before the ship even left port. Russia’s plans to use the downtime to also upgrade the carrier have been canceled due to lack of money.
The Admiral Kuznetsov had a less-than-distinguished performance in 2016 operating in the eastern Mediterranean against ISIS: Two of the carrier’s fighter planes crashed while trying to land on it. After the first accident, most of the ship’s aircraft transferred to Syrian government ground bases and operated from there.
For comparison, China now has two aircraft carriers, one of which is about equal to the one the Russians have, and the other of which is better. The Chinese will start building a third in a few years.
The U.S. has 11 supercarriers, which individually are several times better than any of the carriers China or Russia has. The U.S. also has eight smaller carriers called “Amphibious Assault Ships.”
Russia is possibly the world’s worst offender when it comes to making overly ambitious predictions about future improvements to its military, technology, economy, or infrastructure (and, unsurprisingly, about negative things that will happen to its competitors like the United States). I think this owes partly to a unique cultural habit of lying (the “vranyo“), which is accepted and readily seen through by Russians, but misunderstood by foreigners.
Links
- http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/russias-only-aircraft-carrier-has-big-problem-21535
- https://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2016/12/05/Second-Russian-fighter-jet-crashes-attempting-aircraft-carrier-landing/4261480940373/
- http://www.janes.com/article/65775/russian-carrier-jets-flying-from-syria-not-kuznetsov
- http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/23/magazine/from-russia-with-lies.html