A new fire broke out on Russian aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov.

According to information published by Ria Novosti on December 22, 2022, a small fire broke out on the aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov during repairs, the head of the United Shipbuilding Corporation (USC) Alexei Rakhmanov told.
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Russian aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov. (Picture source: e-news)

She was built by the Black Sea Shipyard, the sole manufacturer of Soviet aircraft carriers, in Nikolayev within the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (SSR) and launched in 1985, becoming fully operational in the Russian Navy in 1995.

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.

She was originally commissioned in the Soviet Navy, and was intended to be the lead ship of the two-ship Admiral Kuznetsov class. However, her sister ship Varyag was still incomplete when the Soviet Union disbanded in 1991. The second hull was eventually sold by Ukraine to China, completed in Dalian, and commissioned as Liaoning.

As of December 2022, Admiral Kuznetsov is out of service for a refit in Murmansk. In November 2018, it was damaged by a falling 70-ton crane from the floating dry dock PD-50 and a fire that killed two during the refit.

The dry dock, which sank due to a power outage while holding Admiral Kuznetsov, was vital to repairing the carrier, which changed its estimated return to service to 2022 or later.

In 2021, the Vice President of the United Shipbuilding Corporation (USC), Vladimir Korolev, told the TASS news agency that the vessel was expected to begin post-repair sea trials in mid-2023 and rejoin the fleet later that year, although this may have been pushed back a year or more due to delays.

In May 2022 it was reported that repairs to the vessel were scheduled for completion in Murmansk in September 2022 but after flaws were found in the work, the date for the return to service was pushed back to at least 2024.