Reason behind US Navy's interest in Russia's only aircraft carrier named

The US Navy's Sixth Fleet was tracking Russian aircraft carrier the Admiral Kuznetsov in the Mediterranean in 2011 because the Americans feared the Russian ship might start sinking, Brandon Weichert, a columnist for The National Interest said.

Photo: National Archives and Records Administration by Lt. Mitchell, U.S.Navy, PDM

"This was not because the Americans, as they did in the glory days of the Cold War, feared the Russian military's prowess. Instead, it was because the Americans were convinced the warship was going to sink at any moment. The Sixth Fleet was ordered to track the carrier and be prepared to render aid whenever the ship eventually sank," the author wrote.

In July, the Izvestia newspaper, citing the Russian Defense Ministry, reported that the Russian Navy started forming aircrews for the Admiral Kuznetsov aircraft carrier.

In July 2023, TASS, citing its own source in the Russian shipbuilding industry, reported that the repaired and modernized Admiral Kuznetsov could be transferred to the Russian Navy as early as in late 2024.

Details

Admiral Kuznetsov is an aircraft carrier (heavy aircraft cruiser in Russian classification) serving as the flagship of the Russian navy. It was built by the Black Sea Shipyard, the sole manufacturer of Soviet aircraft carriers, in Nikolayev within the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (Ukrainian SSR) and launched in 1985, becoming fully operational in the Russian Navy in 1995. The initial name of the ship was Riga; it was launched as Leonid Brezhnev, embarked on sea trials as Tbilisi, and was finally named after Admiral of the Fleet of the Soviet Union Nikolay Gerasimovich Kuznetsov. It was originally commissioned in the Soviet Navy, and was intended to be the lead ship of the two-ship Kuznetsov class. However, its sister ship Varyag was still incomplete when the Soviet Union disbanded in 1991. The second hull was eventually sold by Ukraine to China, completed in Dalian and commissioned as Liaoning. The ship has been out of service and in repairs since 2018.