Why Russia is scrapping its only aircraft carrier

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00:00Russia is scrapping its one and only aircraft carrier. Is it a sign of the times,

00:09showing a shift in naval warfare, or is Russia just too broke to fix its ship?

00:17The ship getting shanked is the 1,000-foot-long Admiral Kuznetsov. It was launched in 1985,

00:24and unlike most modern carriers that use catapult systems to launch planes,

00:30the Kuznetsov employed a ski jump ramp that matters because it meant heavier planes could

00:36not launch off its deck. So no airborne early warning and control system, or AWACS aircraft,

00:44often called the eyes in the sky of any air wing. And the jets that could be launched had to limit

00:50their fuel and weapons loads. The Kuznetsov carried a crew of about 2,600 sailors,

00:57but it could only hold 26 fixed-wing jets and 24 helicopters. By contrast, a typical air wing on

01:05an American Nimitz-class carrier includes more than 70 combat aircraft, including jets, AWACS,

01:12and transport craft. So what's the deal? Why are the Russians scrapping the Kuznetsov?

01:17The Kuznetsov has been a problem child since the 80s. Aside from the limitations of its ski jump ramp,

01:25the ship ran on a low-quality heavy fuel called Mizzute, which meant it constantly needed to be

01:31refueled and was prone to mechanical mishaps, like in 2016 when the Kuznetsov was deployed to Syria during

01:40that country's civil war. Dark plumes of smoke were seen billowing out, the universal sign that something

01:46isn't right with the engine. During that deployment, the carrier also lost a pair of planes, and

01:53eventually its air wing was moved altogether to a land-based airfield. Okay, so admittedly,

02:00the Kuznetsov was a major dud. It was under repair for more than half of its 33-year service life,

02:06and even then, it could not catch a break. In 2018, it was in a floating dry dock, but the dry dock sank,

02:14and one of its cranes crashed onto the carrier's deck. In 2019, some welders accidentally set a

02:21pile of oil-soaked rags on fire. That incident caused almost a billion dollars in damage.

02:28Another fire broke out in 2022, but it was not as big. In the last ten years, Russia spent more than a

02:36billion dollars to fix the ship. But once the Kremlin launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine,

02:42repairing the Kuznetsov any further wasn't really an option. Russia cannot get many of the parts to

02:49fix it because of sanctions, and there's just not enough in Putin's pocketbook to go around.

02:55So why does it matter that the Russians are scrapping their one and only aircraft carrier?

03:01Even though it's been out of the fight for years, losing the Kuznetsov is a huge psychological blow

03:07to Russia and its image as a naval superpower. Since their inception, aircraft carriers have

03:14represented the pinnacle of a country's power projection. But is that still the case?

03:21One of the former commanders of Russia's Pacific Fleet is trying to downplay the loss,

03:26saying carriers are a thing of the past. If that were true, India and China would not be working

03:33feverishly to build their own carrier fleets. Oh, and fun fact, India and China both own Soviet-built

03:41aircraft carriers, which they bought from Russia and are actually the exact same type as the Kuznetsov,

03:49although they have been successfully updated over the year. For more reporting like this,

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