“Admiral Kuznetsov”, Putin’s smoke carrier, sent to die at sea

The aircraft carrier “Admiral Kuznetsov”, the only ship of its type in the Russian Navy, has not resumed its activities at sea since its voyage off the Syrian coast in 2016.

Since then, it has been immobilized to undergo a massive maintenance, upkeep and modernization operation at a controversial site whose estimate was initially estimated at € 300 million.

Normally, this aircraft carrier was supposed to return to sea this year. But fate decided otherwise, despite Putin’s will. In October 2018, a power outage caused the sinking of a floating dock (PD-50, where the ship was located) and the fall of a crane on a part of the ship’s flight deck, which had just been repaired, leaving a hole in it. four by five meters, writes Opex 360.

It should be noted that the electricity supplier of the Murmansk shipyard, PJSC Rossetti, assured that they did not detect any faults in its network at the time of the accident …

Dorel struck

Then, last year, a fire broke out on board the “Admiral Kuznetsov” during the welding work, carried out near a hold where there was fuel.

Since the firefighters took 24 hours to control the flames, it was believed that the aircraft carrier would be irretrievably lost. Or at least it will not return to sea too soon, especially since the high temperatures may have affected the integrity of its structures.

Finally, in August, Alexei Rahmanov, CEO of the conglomerate United Shipbuilding Corporation (USC), assured, according to the Tass agency, that the damage caused to the firefighting ship was much less severe than one might think.

“I have calculated the cost of the repairs. The total budget is between 300 and 350 million rubles (3.4-4 million euros). We are fortunate that the fire had no significant effect. There is no reason to believe. that the incident will still affect the completion of the overhaul of the aircraft carrier “Admiral Kuznetsov”, the Russian executive said.

However, a tender published a few weeks earlier by the Zviozdocikaia shipyard in charge of the works had suggested that the Russian aircraft carrier could return to sea within a few months.

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