The End of the World’s Saddest Aircraft Carrier?
By 
Could be the end of the line for RFS Admiral Kuzentsov…
Admiral Kuzentsov suffered severely from being a one-of-a-kind vessel in a fleet with depleted maintenance funds and human capital deficits, entering service at the very nadir of Russian naval power.
Early deployments often resulted in accidents involving machinery or aircraft, which became especially problematic due to the long distances between her home base in the Arctic and her operational areas in the Mediterranean.
Extended periods at the dock necessitated periods of refit, refurbishment, and crew retraining.
However, by 2006, Kuznetsov was capable of consistent operations and conducted several cruises across the Mediterranean and the North Atlantic. Most notably, Kuzentsov conducted a combat deployment in 2016 in the Eastern Mediterranean as part of the Syrian Civil War, launching over 400 sorties against rebel targets. Two of her twelve fighter-bombers were lost during recovery throughout her deployment, a failure rate which eventually forced the Russian Navy to transfer the aircraft to a land base.
Some other stuff:
- Intellectual property law… in space!
- Mexican drug cartels in Ukraine is an unexpected twist…
- Modi-Trump relationship has hit some rocky spots…
- Australia and the UK working on clearing the legal underbrush around AUKUS…