Brief Operational History

The Kiev was a hybrid cruiser/carrier design developed to provide the Soviet fleet with better anti-submarine capability than the earlier Moskva class carriers.  It also would take advantage of new vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) technology that had recently become available with the Yakovlev ‘Freehand’ fighter.  In combat the ship was primarily a defensive vessel envisioned to protect Soviet ballistic missile submarines from various forms of NATO attack.  In the offensive role the ship had the ability to be used in the pure anti-submarine role where it would lead ASW task forces to clear an area of NATO submarines under friendly air cover.

The first ship of the class, the Kiev, was laid down at Shipyard No. 444 at Nikolayev in September of 1970. It would be the largest conventionally powered Russian carrier design to see fleet service when it was launched in December of 1972.  A second ship, the Minsk, was launched three years later in August of 1975.  The ships both featured a seven-place angled flight deck.  On this deck six of spaces are for helicopters and are marked with the letter C and the numbers 1-6.  The Yak-36 ‘Forger’ aircraft all take off from position six, but land on a wide specially marked space nears position five (marked E on the Kiev and M on the Minsk and Novorossiysk).  This landing area is covered in special asbestos tiles to prevent the Yak-36’s jet exhaust from damaging the ship’s deck. 

All of the ship’s aircraft could be carried internally if required.  To move aircraft and equipment from within the ship to the deck, both the Kiev and Minsk were equipped with seven deck elevators: One for helicopters, one for jets, three for ammunition, one for cargo, and one for crew.

The third ship of the class, the Novorossiysk, was laid down in September of that year.  Its design incorporated several modifications new to the class.  It was fitted with SA-N-9 air-defense missiles instead of the older SA-N-3 ‘Goblet’ missiles and it had several new radar systems (Palm Frond and Strut Pair radars).  It also was equipped with one less ammunition elevator and no cargo elevator.

In May of 1976 the Kiev was finally commissioned after extensive trials in the Black Sea.  Its pennant number before commissioning was 852, but this was later changed to 860.  It was sighted passing through the Turkish straits on July 18, 1976 and was equipped with a full its first fighter complement later that Summer.  In 1978 the Kiev returned to the Black Sea, possibly for modifications.  The Minsk joined the fleet a year later when it was commissioned in July 1979, and the Novorossiysk was commissioned in 1983.  The last of the four-ship class, the Baku, would enter service in 1987 and would have an even more modern anti-aircraft system than the earlier Novorossiysk.

All four ships served through the 1980’s without incident.  They also played a significant role in several major North Atlantic naval exercises in 1980, and 1985.  The ships also began modernizing its helicopter fleet by replacing the older Ka-25 ‘Hormone’ helicopters with the more recent Ka-27 ‘Helix’ designs.  There were even proposals to replace the Yak-36 ‘Forger’ with a new prototype Yak-141 ‘Freestyle’ design, but funding problems slowed the program to a crawl and the aircraft was never deployed.  The carrier Baku also had its name changed to Admiral Gorshkov in honor of the architect of the post-war Soviet fleet.

Tactical Use and Limitations

The Kiev was a bold departure from earlier designs.  Unlike Western carrier designs the Kiev class was not built for power projection or to provide fleet air support.   Instead, the ships were built to stop NATO anti-submarine forces from reaching Soviet ballistic missile submarine bastions and threatening their nuclear retaliatory capability.

For this they were very well equipped.  The ship had powerful SS-N-12 ‘Sandbox’ missiles for dealing with ASW surface ships, anti-submarine helicopters for subsurface threats, and a dozen Yak-36 ‘Forger’ aircraft for keeping anti-submarine aircraft like the Nimrod and P-3 Orion at bay.  The ship also had excellent communications arrays that could be used for controlling an ASW task force if the need arose.

One of the primary disadvantages of the Kiev class was that it usually conducted air operations when the wind speed was 15 knots or less.  This was probably due to inexperience or excessive caution.  The flight deck was also without many of the features that were found on Western aircraft carriers (like a bulldozer for quickly moving wrecked aircraft off the flight deck).  Its rather small fighter complement was another significant limitation as Western carriers tend to operate more than fifty aircraft compared to the Kiev’s dozen or so fighters.

Deployment Chronology

Here you can see what ship the Kiev replaced and what ship eventually replaced it in front-line service.  You can find out more about these ships by clicking on the links below.  It should be noted that in the case of naval vessels, a ship can replace another as a front-line vessel of its type and still serve alongside its predecessor for many years.  This was the case with the Kiev.  It replaced the earlier Moskva in series production, even though it served along side them for many years.  The same could be said of the Kuznetsov that replaced the Kiev as the most advanced Soviet carrier in service.

Sources Cited

Here are some of the most informative sources that we have used in compiling this information for you.  We hope you can find them as useful as we have.

• The Encyclopedia of World Sea Power, Edited by Chris Bishop, published by Crescent Books, New York, 1988 

• Warships of the Soviet Navy, by Captrain E. Moore RN, published by Jane’s Publishing Inc., New York, 1981

• The Illustrated Directory of Warships from 1860 to the Present, by David Miller, Copyright 2001 Salamander books, published by MBI Publishing Company, Osceola WI, 2001