“Work for creating an aircraft carrier has never stopped. The Navy has strict demands for an aircraft carrier, but we so far don’t see anything in their demands that we can’t accomplish. We plan to begin construction of an aircraft carrier no earlier than 2025 or 2030,” the source told RIA Novosti.
Earlier, the head of the Russian Navy’s shipbuilding management department, Capt. 1st Rank Vladimir Tryapichnikov, said that it was likely an aircraft carrier would be built by 2026 or 2027.
The new vessel would lend support to the Admiral Kuznetsov aircraft carrier, the only aircraft carrier currently in the Russian Navy.
The Admiral Kuznetsov was constructed at the Mykolaiv South Shipyard, the sole manufacturer of Soviet aircraft carriers and launched in 1985, becoming fully operational in 1995.