India is now building its own aircraft carriers

The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 scattered its military hardware among twelve newly independent republics. One such piece of hardware was the relatively new aircraft carrier Baku.
Built in Ukraine, named after an Azeri city and inherited by Russia, today Baku is known as the Vikramaditya, flagship of the Indian Navy. A modern flat-top equipped with MiG-29 fighters and the most powerful ship native to the Indian Ocean region, how Vikramaditya went from Soviet to Indian service is one of the more interesting naval stories of the post–Cold War era.

As the navy of Eurasia’s dominant land power, the Soviet Navy rarely received enough resources to fulfill the wish lists of its admirals. The Soviet Navy was largely restricted to two key missions: attacking and destroying American capital ships, particularly aircraft carriers, and protecting bastions sheltering the country’s sea-based nuclear forces.

Read More at http://defencenews.in/article/India-Is-Now-Building-Its-Own-Aircraft-Carriers-(And-Its-All-Russias-Fault)-262407

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