Published by Global Banking & Finance Review®
Posted on July 25, 2025
2 min readLast updated: January 22, 2026
Russia's Admiral Kuznetsov aircraft carrier may be sold or scrapped due to high maintenance costs and age, according to shipbuilding officials.
MOSCOW (Reuters) -Russia's only aircraft carrier, the 40-year-old Admiral Kuznetsov, is likely to be sold or scrapped, the chairman of Russia's state shipbuilding corporation told the Kommersant newspaper in comments published on Friday.
Andrei Kostin's remarks follow a report in the daily Izvestia newspaper earlier this month, which cited unnamed sources as saying long-running refit and maintenance work on the warship had been suspended.
Launched in 1985 when the Soviet Union still existed, the Admiral Kuznetsov saw action in Russia's military campaign in Syria in support of then-President Bashar al-Assad, with its planes carrying out airstrikes against rebel forces.
But it has played no role in the war in Ukraine and has been out of service since 2017, undergoing modernisation in the Murmansk area close to where Russia's Northern Fleet is based.
Efforts to overhaul it have suffered repeated accidents and setbacks.
Asked about its fate on Thursday on the sidelines of a flag-raising ceremony for a new nuclear submarine in northwestern Russia, Kostin made it clear that a final decision had not yet been taken, but suggested that the Admiral Kuznetsov was no longer worth spending money on.
"We believe there is no point in repairing it anymore. It is over 40-years old, and it is extremely expensive ... I think the issue will be resolved in such a way that it will either be sold or disposed of," Kostin was quoted as saying by Kommersant.
Detailed information about the combat readiness of individual warships is regarded as sensitive by Moscow and the Russian Defence Ministry does not comment on such matters.
Russian naval veterans and experts are divided on the prospect of the warship being scrapped, with some telling Izvestia it is obsolete, and others saying it or a successor would provide a capability that Russia needs.
The aircraft carrier gained notoriety in Britain when then-Secretary of Defence Michael Fallon dubbed it the "ship of shame" in 2017 when it passed close to the English coast on its way back from the Mediterranean belching black smoke.
(Reporting by Andrew Osborn;Editing by Helen Popper)
The Admiral Kuznetsov has been out of service since 2017 and is currently undergoing modernization in the Murmansk area.
Andrei Kostin stated that there is no point in repairing the Admiral Kuznetsov anymore due to its age and high costs, suggesting it may be sold or scrapped.
The aircraft carrier gained notoriety when UK Secretary of Defence Michael Fallon referred to it as the 'ship of shame' in 2017 during its return from a military campaign.
The efforts to overhaul the Admiral Kuznetsov have faced repeated accidents and setbacks, complicating its modernization process.
Russian naval veterans and experts are divided on the future of the Admiral Kuznetsov, with some considering it obsolete while others believe it could still provide valuable capabilities.
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