Free Republic

At the tail end of the Cold War, the Soviet Union produced a number of unique aircraft carriers. Known as the Kiev class, the carriers were the Soviets’ initial foray into the world of fixed wing naval aviation, and the only Soviet carriers to become fully operational. The story of the Kiev carriers is also the story of a land power forging a path to become a naval power, seeking to realize a fleet that could challenge the mighty U.S. Navy. The Kiev-class aircraft carriers had their origins in the tenure of Admiral Sergei Gorshkov. Appointed by Nikita Khrushchev to...

Russia and India are to sign an additional agreement on a contract to upgrade the Admiral Gorshkov aircraft carrying cruiser, a Russian military cooperation service top official said Monday. "The document will be signed in February-March this year," deputy service director Alexander Fomin said. Moscow and New Delhi had been wrangling over the final cost of the project to upgrade the aircraft carrier since Russia said it had underestimated the cost of modernization, and asked for an additional $1.2 billion, an amount India called "exorbitant." Under the original $1.5-billion 2004 contract between Russia's state-controlled arms exporter Rosoboronexport and the Indian...