Russia to build new generation aircraft carrier

MOSCOW, (RIA Novosti)

Russia’s new-generation aircraft carrier will be nuclear powered and have a displacement of up to 60,000 metric tons, a United Shipbuilding Corporation executive said on Friday. Vice Adm. Anatoly Shlemov, the company’s head of defence contracts, said the new carrier was still at the drawing board stage, but its blueprint and basic specifications have already been defined.

He said the carrier will serve as a seaborne platform for new-generation fixed- and rotary-winged aircraft, in particular, a fifth-generation fighter that will replace the Su-33 multirole fighter aircraft currently in service, as well as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV). “It will be a fifth-generation aircraft with classic horizontal take-off and landing capability,” the admiral said. Shlemov said, unlike in the past, the new aircraft carrier would not be armed with cruise missiles, which were not part of its “job description.”