Soviet nuclear carrier Ulyanovsk, laid down in 1988, scrapped by Ukraine in 1992

On November 25, 1988, workers at the Black Sea Shipyard in Nikolayev laid down the Soviet Union's first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. Project 1143.7, named Ulyanovsk, was expected to launch in 1992 and enter service in December 1995. The keel-laying marked the end of a long internal debate in Moscow over whether the Soviet Navy needed a full-size carrier at all.

Design and Specifications

Ulyanovsk was designed as a ship of more than 73,000 tons at full load, with a length of roughly 321 meters. Key specifications included:

• Propulsion: Four KN-3-43 reactors driving four shafts with 280,000 horsepower
• Speed: Top speed near 30 knots
• Air wing: Approximately 70 fighters, radar aircraft, and helicopters
• Launch systems: Two steam catapults and a bow ski jump
• Aircraft handling: Three aircraft elevators

A Hybrid Design

Ulyanovsk followed some American design logic without becoming a direct copy of a Nimitz-class carrier. Its flight deck supported conventional naval aviation, but its hull also retained the weapons of a missile cruiser, including:

• 12 P-700 Granit anti-ship missiles
• Layered air defenses

Soviet planners still classified the vessel as a "heavy aircraft-carrying cruiser," preserving the service's preference for warships capable of fighting with their own missiles.

Construction Halted

Construction stopped in November 1991, with estimates of completion ranging from roughly 20 to 40 percent, depending on whether the measure covered the entire ship or visible hull work. The reactors had not been installed.

After the Soviet Union dissolved, the yard and unfinished carrier stood inside independent Ukraine. Russia no longer controlled the shipyard; the state that financed the project had disappeared, the supply chain had split across new borders, and Ukraine formally ordered the hull dismantled.

The Soviet Navy's Long Road to a Nuclear Carrier

Soviet naval aviation developed through smaller steps:

• Moskva class: Carried anti-submarine helicopters
• Kiev class: Combined a partial flight deck for Yak-38 vertical-takeoff aircraft with the missile battery of a cruiser

These hybrids fit a navy centered on submarines, long-range missiles, and the defense of Soviet naval formations, but their small air wings and limited aircraft never matched the reach of American carrier groups.

Moscow had studied larger nuclear designs under Projects 1160 and 1153 during the 1970s. Defense Minister Andrei Grechko supported an 80,000-ton carrier with catapults and as many as 70 aircraft. After his death, Dmitry Ustinov favored smaller aviation cruisers, and the earlier carrier project died. The troubled evolution toward a nuclear-powered Soviet carrier continued until the Nevskoye Design Bureau revived the concept as Ulyanovsk in 1984.

Addressing the Kuznetsov's Limitations

Admiral Kuznetsov used a ski jump rather than catapults. Fighters launched from it, but takeoff weight, weapons, and fuel became harder tradeoffs, and the ship lacked a fixed-wing airborne early-warning aircraft.

Ulyanovsk kept a ski jump for fighters while adding two steam catapults. These launchers were intended to:

• Send the Yak-44 radar aircraft aloft
• Give heavily loaded Su-33 or MiG-29K fighters more flexibility

The combination mattered more than nuclear endurance alone. Yak-44 aircraft would have extended the carrier group's radar horizon and helped direct fighters beyond the range of shipboard sensors.

The nuclear plant supported sustained speed and long deployments, while the Granit missiles showed that Soviet designers still expected the ship itself to deliver a major anti-ship strike. Ulyanovsk joined two naval traditions that Moscow had never fully reconciled.

A Fatal Timing

The timing was fatal. Ulyanovsk was ordered in June 1986 and laid down late in 1988, as Mikhail Gorbachev's government faced worsening economic pressure and moved toward reduced confrontation with the West.

A contemporary U.S. Naval Institute assessment in 1990 still described an energetic Soviet shipbuilding program and treated Ulyanovsk as the follow-on to the new Tbilisi class, later renamed Kuznetsov.

Less than two years later, the same journal described Soviet naval construction as grinding to a halt. Ukraine's December 1, 1991, independence vote placed the carrier yard beyond Russian control. Reactors, weapons, electronics, and aviation programs all depended on a state that no longer existed.