Russian Defense Ministry May Order New Aircraft Carrier in 2025

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — Russia's Defense Ministry may sign a contract for the construction of a new aircraft carrier by the end of 2025, Deputy Defense Minister Yuri Borisov said Thursday.

"It will most likely happen by the end of 2025. We have three projects that have been proposed by the Krylov [research] center. Overall, they are not bad," Borisov told reporters at the ongoing HeliRussia-2016 helicopter exhibition in Moscow.

The Krylov State Research Centre is a major Russian ship research and design institution focusing on hi-tech products and services for navy and maritime merchant clients.

Anatoly Shlemov, the head of the Defense Procurement and Acquisition department of Russia's United Shipbuilding Corporation said that the St. Petersburg-based Nevskoe Design Bureau has been working on designs for a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier ordered by the Defense Ministry since 2007. The costs and timeframes have been set, he said, adding that the project has not gone ahead due to lack of funds allocated by Russia's defense procurement budget until 2017.

Earlier, a Defense Ministry source told RIA Novosti that the government armament program does not provide for ordering an aircraft carrier by 2020, and the matter will not be decided until then.

Currently, the Admiral Kuznetsov is Russia’s only aircraft-carrying cruiser, sometimes designated by the West as an aircraft carrier, and commissioned into the Navy on December 25, 1990.