Admiral Kuznetsov

History: Admiral Flota Sovetskogo Soyuza Kuznetsov (Russian: Адмира́л фло́та Сове́тского Сою́за Кузнецо́в "Admiral of the Fleet of the Soviet Union Kuznetsov") is an aircraft carrier (heavy aircraft cruiser in Russian classification) serving as the flagship of the Russian Navy. It was built by the Black Sea Shipyard, the sole manufacturer of Soviet aircraft carriers, in Nikolayev within the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (SSR). The initial name of the ship was Riga; it was launched as Leonid Brezhnev, embarked on sea trials as Tbilisi, and finally named Admiral Flota Sovetskogo Soyuza Kuznetsov after Admiral of the fleet of the Soviet Union Nikolay Gerasimovich Kuznetsov.

It was originally commissioned in the Soviet Navy, and was intended to be the lead ship of the two-ship Kuznetsov class. With the dissolution of the Soviet Union, she was transferred to the newly formed Russian Navy.

Class: The Kuznetsov-class aircraft carrier, Soviet designation Project 11435, is a class of fixed-wing aircraft carriers (heavy aircraft cruiser in Soviet classification) operated by the Russian and Chinese navies. Originally designed for the Soviet Navy, the Kuznetsov-class ships use a ski-jump to launch high-performance conventional aircraft in a STOBAR configuration. The design represented a major advance in Soviet fleet aviation over the Kiev-class carriers, which could only launch VSTOL aircraft. Two ships were originally laid down at the Nikolayev South Shipyard in the Ukrainian SSR, followed by the first of the Ulyanovsk-class nuclear-powered supercarriers.

The plans were disrupted by the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. Only the lead ship Admiral Kuznetsov had been commissioned when the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991, and the ship now serves in the Russian Navy. Her sister ship Varyag remained in Ukraine unfinished and unmaintained for a decade before being sold and towed to China for use as a floating casino. Instead, the ship was eventually completed and commissioned in 2012 as the Chinese navy's first aircraft carrier, the Type 001 aircraft carrier Liaoning. A third ship is being built by China to a modified Type 001A design and is expected to be commissioned in 2019. It began sea trials on May 13, 2018.

Nationality: Russia is the largest country in the world by area, covering more than one-eighth of the Earth's inhabited land area.
The country in its current form was created in 1991 after the dissolution of the Soviet Union (USSR), but Russia has a long history tracing back to the creation of the Tsardom of Russia in 1547 .