Air carriers have been floating signs of power—enormous machines that carry a nation’s reach out to sea. For the Soviet Union, whether or not to build one was never a matter of pistons and steel. It was a matter of pride, prestige, and showing Moscow could walk shoulder to shoulder with the world’s naval giants. That vision became a near-reality in the late 1980s with the Ulyanovsk, a behemoth ship that would have made the Soviet Navy a true world power. It’s one of the best “what might have been” stories in the history of the military.
Construction of the Ulyanovsk began in 1988 at the Mykolaiv shipyard. Officially titled as Project 1143.7, the warship was intended to rival the behemoth United States nuclear-powered carriers. Unlike its predecessor, Admiral Kuznetsov, which utilized a ski-jump catapult launch system, the Ulyanovsk would be equipped with steam catapults—a technological jumpfrog designed to allow the heavier and more advanced planes to take off with maximum weapons and fuel loads.
At more than 324 meters long and 80,000 tons, the Ulyanovsk would be bigger than any warship ever built. Four nuclear reactors powered four turbines, and it could cruise for 30 knots with a sailing range to go months at a time without needing a stop for refueling. In all respects, it would place the Soviet Navy on a par with the Americans.
The intended air group highlighted the size. The Ulyanovsk would have had approximately 70 aircraft, from Su-33 fighter aircraft to Yak-44 warning aircraft and Ka-27 anti-submarine warfare helicopters. It was not just a carrier—it was an armed ship, as well, with P-700 Granit anti-ship missiles, S-300 long-range surface-to-air systems, and several layers of close-in defenses. The design rendered it half aircraft carrier, half battleship, and wholly menacing.
To Soviet admirals, Ulyanovsk was more than a new addition to their fleet—it was a pronouncement. It represented the rise of a navy able to sail anywhere in the world, engage American carrier groups on its own terms, and show the Soviet Union’s ability to tap power, technology, and drive on a large scale.
But before the project could even be underway, history took a different turn. The early 1990s’ collapse of the Soviet Union brought about chaos, economic devastation, and priorities. The money and the political will to finish the supercarrier just disappeared.
By 1992, just a quarter of the Ulyanovsk had been constructed. Budgets were slashed, and crisis-stricken industries, Russia and Ukraine, endured tough financial realities. On 4 February 1992, the choice was made to disassemble the unfinished hull. All the planning years and billions of rubles expended went on scrap heaps—a fantasy ruined before it might ever be let out of dry dock.
That shadow still rests upon it. Now Russia has just one carrier, the Admiral Kuznetsov, and it is more feared than admired. It has broken down, caught fire, and been patched up ad infinitum. So unreliable is its engine that the vessel sets off for the high seas only under tow behind a tugboat—just in case. To mariners, it’s a token not of power, but of the disappointments that have plagued Russia’s naval aspirations ever since.
Yet the vision has not completely disappeared. Designs for new carriers—like the planned Shtorm-class—still crop up periodically in defense strategy and conceptual art. But these are more than fantasies, subject to limiting budgets and shifting military priorities.
Actually, the bigger problem has never truly altered. Without a powerful carrier force, Russia’s projection of naval power beyond distant oceans remains circumscribed. The delusion of world supremacy still runs aground on the shoals of geography, economics, and technology.
Ulyanovsk’s history is more than a half-finished ship’s story. It’s a testament to the final conceit of an empire to catch up with its foes on the world’s oceans—and a reminder that even the grandest dreams can be crushed by the tides of events.