Russia’s economy isn’t in the same drastic state that it was post the 98 crash. Its getting better and quickly (for a ‘developed nation’ they have a surprisingly fast growth rate). One of the problems is that much of this money is in the private sector and filters to the state sector slowly or not at all. This situation is improving too though and with the additional bonus of the state re-buying shares in companies like Gazprom it will be making it self some serious cash – directly. The Russian defense budget is increasing too and this year the procurement budget is larger than the export income (some USD6 billion). This basically means that for the first time in a long time Russia is investing more into its own military industrial complex than is coming in from abroad. Furthermore, the federal reserve is now larger than ever before which means that even in the event of a crash in the global oil price or some other calamatous event the Russian economy shouldn’t crash. These are all very positive things both for Russia as a country but also for future Russian military development.

That said, I still think that a carrier is a waste of money – the Kuznetsov did nothing during its service time and is doing nothing right now and I can’t imagine what the new carrier would do… except maybe; nothing.