Ukrainian political and military observer Oleksandr Kovalenko reported that Russia has effectively failed to repair its only aircraft carrier, the Admiral Kuznetsov, marking what he called “a sentence for the Russian Navy.”The aircraft-carrying cruiser of Project 1143.5, long plagued by technical failures, corruption, and catastrophic incidents, has now become a symbol of Russia’s naval and industrial decay, Kovalenko noted in his joint analysis with OBOZ.UA and the Information Resistance group.“Kuzya” was doomed from the startKovalenko recalled that back in 2019, when he first assessed the condition of the Admiral Kuznetsov, known colloquially as “Kuzya”, he predicted that the ship would never return to active service. “The only aircraft carrier of the Russian Navy would either be scrapped or turned into a bottomless pit for budget siphoning,” he wrote.Russia, in his words, didn’t just fail to repair the ship — it “sank it completely.” He pointed to a series of accidents, delays, and mounting costs that made the vessel’s return impossible.A legacy of failures and firesThe Admiral Kuznetsov was sent for repairs in 2017 after its first and only combat deployment off Syria, which ended disastrously with the loss of two carrier-based fighter jets due to a known defect in the landing system.In 2018, a major incident sank the PD-50 floating dock, Russia’s only such facility capable of servicing the ship, causing further damage to Kuznetsov and forcing its relocation to the 35th Ship Repair Plant, which lacked a dry dock large enough for it. Rebuilding the dock alone required 23 billion rubles, part of a spiraling budget that would eventually surpass 95 billion rubles by 2019.That year, a fire in the power compartment killed two people and caused additional damage worth 500 million rubles. Another fire struck on December 25, 2022, when a reducer regulating gas pressure in an acetylene cylinder malfunctioned during welding. Sanctions, too, severely hindered the repair process, as Russian industry proved unable to independently source critical components.Foreign parts, no paint, and legal limitationsAs Kovalenko detailed, much of the equipment required to restore the Admiral Kuznetsov came from foreign suppliers. For instance, the Italian company Tecnicomar was meant to provide an Ecomar sewage treatment system. Without it, the vessel would be barred from international waters under the MARPOL-73/78 Convention. However, the full delivery never occurred.Germany was also supposed to supply critical seals for the ship’s arresting gear, and, in a surreal twist, Norwegian company Jotun Paints was contracted to supply more than 45,000 liters of specialized marine paint, because, as Kovalenko noted, “Russia did not have a single manufacturer capable of producing the necessary paint and varnish materials for military vessels.”Symbolic collapseEventually, Kuznetsov’s fate was sealed. On July 25, 2025, just before Navy Day, Andrey Kostin, head of VTB, Russian majority state-owned bank, and chairman of the United Shipbuilding Corporation, announced that the ship might be sold or dismantled.Kovalenko wasn’t surprised. “Back in 2019,” he recalled, “I wrote that all the signs pointed to the fact that it would be easier and more profitable to sell Kuzya to some Asian country and turn it into a casino than to attempt repairs. And so it happened.”Litmus test for Russian declineIn conclusion, Kovalenko emphasized that the Admiral Kuznetsov represents more than a failed ship. It is a “litmus test of the collapse of the entire shipbuilding industry in post-Soviet Russia” and a glaring symbol of the technological, logistical, and managerial failures under the Putin regime."A country that dreams of 100,000-ton aircraft carriers could not even repair one already built," he wrote. On the eve of Navy Day, Russia's flagship became a “non-renewable, illiquid asset” — a bitter metaphor for the state of its fleet.