Russia’s only aircraft carrier has again caught fire, just a few months before the warship was scheduled to return to sea following extensive repairs.

Admiral Kuznetsov caught fire on Thursday while the ship was close to completing years of repairs and returning to service in the Russian navy, according to Alexei Rakhmanov, head of the state-owned United Shipbuilding Corporation (USC).

Rakhmanov told Russia’s RIA Novosti news agency that there were no casualties or damage and that the fire had been extinguished. Approximately 20 people were evacuated from the ship, which was undergoing repairs at a dry dock in Murmansk, a city in the Arctic region of Russia, according to the Tass news agency.

A troubled recent history

The carrier started an overhaul and modernisation programme in 2017 to extend its service life by 25 years. However, in October 2018, Admiral Kuznetsov was damaged when Russia’s biggest floating dry dock, PD-50, sank, causing one of its 70-ton cranes to crash onto the ship’s flight deck, leaving behind a 19-square-metre (200 sq ft) hole.

Local media reported that one person was reported missing and four injured as the dry dock sank in Kola Bay. Admiral Kuznetsov was in the process of being removed from the dock when the incident occurred, and was towed to a nearby yard after the incident. The fallen crane was removed after three months.

In late May 2019, seven months later, information posted on Digital Forensic Research Lab’s blog suggested that repair work of the aircraft carrier was underway. That same month, it was also announced that two graving docks in Roslyakovo, Murmansk Oblast would be merged and enlarged to accommodate Admiral Kuznetsov, the work taking a year and a half.

In December 2019, a major fire broke out on board Admiral Kuznetsov as work continued on the ship’s refit. Two people died and fourteen suffered injuries from the fire and smoke inhalation. Fire-related damage aboard Admiral Kuznetsov was estimated at US$8 million.

Another fire was reported today.

George Allison
George Allison
George has a degree in Cyber Security from Glasgow Caledonian University and has a keen interest in naval and cyber security matters and has appeared on national radio and television to discuss current events. George is on Twitter at @geoallison
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95 COMMENTS

  2. Sounds like a insurance job to me. The Russian Navy hoping for a new replacement for an old item. Best they can hope for is scrap price.

  3. Yet another smoking related accident?

    They appear to be increasing in frequency and intensity!

    “ which was undergoing repairs at a dry dock in Murmansk” I suppose if you can describe something with an earth berm gate as a dry dock…….

    On one level it is sad that this is happening to a once proud military. On another level it is high time they realised they are out of the big league and to stop pretending and start saving some money and lives (I put it that way round deliberately as that is the order of importance to them) and pull out of Ukraine…..

          • Let’s be thankful we all had just about enough war stocks to deal with this madness.

            Whilst I hate to say it, the Tangerine Tinted Buffon did push the UK to stop cutting and others to increase spend. God help us if cutting had continued.

            It is Christmas and good people are dying on both sides. Whilst terrible people in the Kremlin are orchestrating this madness.

            Which is why I find it bizarre that the Tangerine’s own Party might be Putrid Putin’s best hope….

            If the Tangerine did one good thing for the world: this is it.

          • UK defence spending isn’t keeping pace with inflation so the cuts are continuing. 47.9bn nominal in 2022 to 48.0bn nominal in 2023 is a substantial cut when inflation is north of 10%.

          • Remember there was a £16b one off boost announced in 2021. As this works through future years will appear reduced

          • Underlying inflation is 6% and that isn’t annualised.

            Underlying inflation is dropping quite sharply now.

          • Best guess as of current date, 2024 will be a contest between Biden and DeSantis. Recall the old Chinese epithet, “May you live during interesting times.” 🤔😳😱🙄

            How is your PM performing at the moment? No headlines on this side of Pond; probably a relief for body politic.

      • The more of life one sees the less sense it makes. Perhaps that is why the Russians have produced a great literature; as compensation.

        • Sadly Russian literature tends to both describe and excuse the Russian world view that history is history and the individual has no power. It has pretty much lead to a population that on the whole does not question and very much accepts what they see as the inevitable March of history.

          • I don’t agree that history is a measure of a nation’s culture; Germany for example among many.

          • Culture is by its very nature build up in layers and is utterly dependent on what went before. history sculpts what we are and what we think. The past is unfortunately both inescapable and unchanging, we can however use that understand of who we are to create a better present and future, if we are both wise enough to look and brave enough to learn.

            As for Germany is culture is actually one of the very best examples of how a nations history sculptures its present culture. The who society is scared by massive historic trauma.

            The idea of Germany was created by the 1800c view of biological nationalism and the Volk. At that time Germany was 39 waring states that were essentially created from the fall of the holly Roman Empire in 1806 ( a multi ethnic empire) after it was dissolved by Napoleon.

            after the fall of Napoleon the German states formed a mutual defence group called the confederation of German states, but within these states a new paradigm developed in that has haunted the world ever since:

            “A state without a Volk (a people who share a language and culture) is nothing, a soulless artifice; a Volk without a state is nothing, a bodiless airy phantom, like the Gypsies* and the Jews. Only state and Volk together could form a Reich (great empire), and such a Reich cannot be preserved without Volkdom.” 1810 German scholar.

            This then drove the German revolutionary movement of 1848-150 ( the German element of the European spring in which revolution caused the movement of Europe into the early modern nations). This growing culture of nationhood and German nationalism destroyed the coalition and the smaller states within creating the German empire, which was the first German state and step one to World War One, which lead onto World War Two ( you would not have had World War Two without the trauma of World War One).

            So the idea of a German Volk was born from the collapse of a medial state and the imperial ambitions of the late 19the early 20th were driven by envy of the earlier imperial powers as German nationhood is younger that the earlier imperial powers. This lead to the standoff of the great central powers and the triple entente and WW1. The aftermath of WW1 rubbed up against the 18th and 19th century idea of the Volk leading to the creation of the third Reich, death of millions in death camps and the utter ruination of German culture. This historic even has lead to a rebuilding of new German culture that moved away from what caused the destruction. But and this is important, the ideas of the 18C Volk live on.

            you can never escape your culture, it defines your world view and your culture is created by the many layers of history going back many generations ( we still tell stories of events that happened thousands of years ago and use them as cultural tools and icons).

          • Oh dear, mien Herren unt Damen chose the wrong Cross, and then went for Mr.’ Hilter’. Amazing fuck up. 🤔

          • Yep indeed, but the joy of hindsight and history is that you can see how all the bad choices lined up. Sometimes it can seem that one choice almost inevitably leads to another outcome and choice. The fact is the views of our 19th century Mien Herren unt Damen and the destruction of the Holy Roman Empire by Napoleon set the foundations for World War One, the rise of communism in Russia, World War Two and finally the Cold War sort of gives validation to the Russian view of the March or history as so well iterated by Tolstoys works. To really understand why the Russian pubic take what they do you have to really grasp that fundamental view of the powerless individual in the face of history.It’s something we Anglo-Saxons really profoundly cannot at our core grasp or really even like to consider, as we have a firm belief in the individual and power of the individual to change events.

          • Long story, short. Mass of people poorly educated manipulated at every turn. Then,when manage to get educated, they’re extermated. Leader was psychotic. WW2, Major city encircled, in extreme conditions, alas no law against canabolism, So Vlad pass me leg, this one is past it.🙃

          • Yep it can be summed up pretty much that way. Psychotic leader, poorly educated masses manipulate and those that get educated end up shot, stoned, burnt, hung (name your poison). Pretty much the history of humanity summed up.

            in-fact you could say the only difference between the West in the 20th and 21st c and the rest of the world is that the number of educated massed finally overtook a psychotic leaders ability to have them all killed if they disagreed 😂😂😂😂

            ( I’m pretty sure trump would have shot a few people if he thought it would have worked).

          • orange boy is like the terminator he will be back….😂 time to prepare for Christmas Day no time for sleeping here ( we have the mother in law around ).

        • Yes, thanks for the reminder. When reacting to current events, one can yield unfairly to stereotyping all. There is a class w/in Russian society that understands and detests Putin’s policies, but has no credible means of resistance. That is why, despite significant counter arguments, a majority of Americans support the concept, if not full context, of US Constitution’s 2nd amendment (right to bear arms)

          The same general case can be made re Iran.

          • The second amendment is really interesting and I’ve had some interesting discussions with some Americans around it. It’s something that is profoundly different between our two cultures and literally people in the the UK find it difficult to grasp the context of the US discussion, Because we have no specific cultural bias around the right of citizens to arm themselves we can only really look at gun laws in a the potential they can cause vs their use as tools or sports equipment. Which is why the have such strict gun laws. Trying to wrap our heads around another dimension to that risk vs be fit discussion is very hard ( the political right and cultural necessity to own weapons due to the history of the U.S.). It’s why I never really get into the right and wrongs of gun laws in the US as I simply don’t have the cultural context to have a valid view other than it’s a massive pubic health issue the US needs to think about.

          • Understood. Issue is complex, multifaceted. Canadians and Australians have changed laws relatively recently in response to traumatic incidents. Swiss and Israelis have not, to my knowledge.

          • Interestingly Finland which has the same level of gun ownership as the US does not suffer with endemic gun deaths. Even though as a society it’s got a lot of issues with violent crime it tends to be like the UK physical violence not the US gun violence.

            It may be something around the fact Finland has universal conscription to go with its lax gun laws, so although the population has a lot of guns they all have the training to respect and manage them. This may be something that the US needs to consider…universal access to guns but with a requirement to actually have a high level of training around respect and management.

          • Believe Israelis and Swiss also have universal (or nearly universal) conscription.

            You may well have noted a true case of cause and effect, rather than simple correlation. 🤔😳
            .

          • I’ve got a fix for the 2nd amendment. Every citizen has the right to bear arms as the arms were at the time it was written. So muskets and flint lock pistols only. 😀😀

          • In all seriousness you have you wrapped up the context of the issue pretty well..mass murder with a flint lock or matchlock muzzle loader is not really on the cards. I’m not sure they would have ever written the second amendment If they could have conceived of an assault rifle.

        • Sorry, forgot to agree w/ your point before launching on my own tangent, let’s consider it a premature senior moment…🤔😳🙄

  8. Well working warships have combustible items onboard, like fuel etc… whereas a rusting empty hulk has far less 🤷🏻‍♂️

    • JohninMK!? Where is ‘they’? ‘It wasn’t a fire, it was a drill.’

      Reading the exchanges between the Kremlin stooge and Airborne was the highlight of 2022 for me; rarely laughed more. Bless the people of Ukraine and best wishes to one and all. 👍

  14. So, there’s now been two fires and damage to the flight deck from a toppled crane while on a floating dry dock that sank. Nope, not funny at all.

  15. I think the Chinese will end up flogging their copies of this one to the Russians as the high ski jump theirs have don’t work well with their fighters. They want to have their Nimitz copies as their at sea carriers instead. Ivan will be better off braking that one up for paper clips.

  16. I am curious to know at what point Russia stopped being a real threat. Going back to end of ww2 the allies overestimated russian force size which resulted in Poland etc being occupied. That overestimation has clearly been the case in recent history as Ukraine has showed. But was there a point when it wasn’t the case or has Russia through out the cold war been misunderstood in regards to military capability.

    • They weren’t just Russia during the Cold War. Both sides in the current conflict were part of the Soviet Union along with many other countries, which was in turn part of the Warsaw Pact with most of Eastern Europe.

      A different beast to Putin’s kleptocracy.

    • Russia at the end of WW2 was a dangerous beast. They had mobilised around a 3rd of their population into their armed forces. Army 20-25 million. Air force 2-3 million. Navy/Marines around 650,000. The allies had witnessed this force grind down the Axis forces on the Eastern front. Some 360+ divisions had been engaged and defeated over 3.5 years of conflict.
      Not surprisingly the allies didn’t like the idea of facing that army. The modern Russian forces are completely different. Their ability to conduct combined arms warfare is fortunately non existent. The only similarity between WW2 Russians and now is their willingness to accept huge casualties.

  17. It’s probably on purpose as someone spent half the original refit money on a mansion and the job couldn’t be finished. Just a bit more cash please.

  19. While Russian’s faff around with their carrier may everyone on UKDJ have a Merry Christmas and all the best for the New Year! May 🇺🇦 have a marvellous victory in 2023 and get their country back! 🇬🇧 🇦🇺 🇺🇦 and the rest of the free 🗺.

  21. The Russians should end this no longer funny farce and just pull the Kuznetzov from service and sell her for scrap metal as that is really all she is good for, they’ll need her metal to help rebuild infrastructure they destroyed

  22. According to Mr. Putin and the Russian free press the ship is ready for sea and if to carry out a devastating strike mission ( probably hit the tug) somewhere off the Crimea in the next few days. “Stories in the western press are all untrue” said a spokesman from Siberia.🕵

  24. You can’t help but laugh at the continued ineptitude of the Russian Navy, Russian Military and Russian State in general.

    I’m glad no sailors were harmed though.

    • Unfortunately, Russians have exhibited a capability for resiliency throughout recent history. Eventually they may stumble into the correct military leadership, combined w/ rearmament program and conscription. USSR military performance in WWII was pathetic initially… Now they come armed w/ nukes…

  25. Fingers crossed it will end up being gutted by fire, anything too humiliate that mad bastard and maybe just weaken his grip a little more. although he would just end up blaming nazi sabotage backed by the western powers and unfortunately the Russian population would suck it up.

      • It’s not at sea it’s at port and if it burns in port all the better. I specifically did not say anything about crew etc. Yes I’ve been to sea and I know my way around a boat. I’ve also seen and managed more death than most people can get their head around including the drowned and burnt to death. I’ve sucked the black tar out of a persons airway and been awash in seawater as I’ve tried to resuscitate drowning victims.

        Fundamentally it’s a weapon of war that can bring mass destruction to a lot of innocents and its controlled by a mad bastard who’s spent 20 years subjugating and bombing innocents, so yes I hope it burns. Do I wish for the crew to be burnt to death or drown in the high seas…no. But they will all likely be complicit in the murder of lots of innocents if the ship leaves port, so I hope it does not.

        • Jonathan, thanks for your honesty. I do appreciate your candour. I too have a similar background, and in 25yrs in the RN, well, you could write a book. Anyhoo have a good Christmas and a great New year 🎄👍

  26. This is a nice Christmas present the many who see the Russians as both incompetent and totally unable even to defeat a third rank power and yet … somehow .. also as a major conventional military threat.

    • One of the problems when looking at the Russian military re Ukraine & then deciding they are all like that, is how much have they held back in case NATO moves. It’s a bit like looking at the Vietnam war & US military. The US never fully engaged in Vietnam. But they still spent a fortune in money & blood. I see many similarities.

      • I think most analysis suggests that they have held almost nothing back in terms of their ground forces and that their losses among their best units have been very high. They are mobilizing considerable manpower now, but it is not clear how well these new units will be equipped. But it is on Ukraine that Russia is now focusing all of its resources.

        All in all, what the evidence of the war seems to confirm is that Russia cannot be regarded as a conventional military threat to the West. They have been unable to defeat a third rate military power and if they cannot accomplish even that, then they pose virtually no conventional military threat to the West. Nuclear capability is something else of course, but the conventional military threat appears to be confirmed as extremely low.

  28. Fire has broken out today on USS Carney, a guided missile destroyer, while portside. Six sailors taken to hospital for smoke inhalation.

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