"Russia's Super Strange Kiev-Class Aircraft Carriers " Topic

"At the tail end of the Cold War, the Soviet Union produced a number of unique aircraft carriers. Known as the Kiev class, the carriers were the Soviets' initial foray into the world of fixed wing naval aviation, and the only Soviet carriers to become fully operational. The story of the Kiev carriers is also the story of a land power forging a path to become a naval power, seeking to realize a fleet that could challenge the mighty U.S. Navy.

The Kiev-class aircraft carriers had their origins in the tenure of Admiral Sergei Gorshkov. Appointed by Nikita Khrushchev to the position of Commander in Chief of the Soviet Navy in 1956, Gorshkov served in that position for a remarkable twenty-nine years. He oversaw the expansion of the Soviet Navy from a strategically insignificant force in the years after World War II to a well-balanced one that could project power into the Third World, a problem that became obvious during the Cuban Missile Crisis when the Soviet Navy had no long-range striking forces it could send to meet the U.S. naval blockade of Cuba…"
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Amicalement
Armand

Dude missed an important point: Because the ships were built on the Black Sea, they couldn't be classed as 'aircraft carriers' and freely transit the Dardanelles. So they had to be classed as Aviation Cruisers, and probably not even have a full flight deck (I'd have to read the treaty and my French is not up to speed for that!).

The Indian's converted Kiev-class, the Vikramaditya, stripped out all of the missiles in the forward hull and enlarged the flight deck to make a true carrier.