Russia cuts funding for rebuilding its decrepit aircraft carrier

The Drive:

Russia's sole fixed-wing aircraft carrier, the Admiral Kuznetsov, returned from Syria late last winter to finally begin a long and supposedly deep refit and modernization that would allow it to serve for years to come. The carrier's overhaul, which had been put off time and time again over the last decade, is said to cost over $800M, and will take nearly half a decade to accomplish. But just as we at The War Zone had concerns about, it seems that Moscow is now significantly reducing the scope of work for the refit due to fiscal considerations, with only about half the funding needed for the original plan being provided.

Interfax Russia first reported on the reduction in investment in the carrier, with their source stating:

"Instead of previously planned approximately $50B rubles for the work, it is planned to allocate about half of the previously announced amount."

The reduction will surely impact the initiative to update the ship's mission-related technology, including its radars, communications, defensive systems and so on, with the roughly $400M still allotted for the refit likely being used to repair the ship's propulsion systems and other critical infrastructure.

This triaging of resources makes sense as the Admiral Kuznetsov is famous for its poor reliably—an oceangoing tug follows it everywhere it goes—as well as its run-down living conditions and mission hardware. In particular, the ship's boilers are known to be in especially poor condition. And although wide-eye concepts like a supposed future Russian supercarrier design have made their rounds, such projects are all but impossible for Russia to achieve, both fiscally speaking and in terms of shipbuilding capabilities. The fact that Moscow can't even update its only existing carrier, even after years of deferring such an initiative, underlines this stark economic reality.
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There is more.

Russia apparently lacks the resources for modernizing its fleet and for production of the advanced weapons systems it has announced.  Sanctions continue to take a toll on the Russian economy as well as the drop in the price of oil caused by US shale production. 

The Democrats opposition to US energy production was a gift to the Russians for a time, but the industry overcame the obstacles put up by the Democrats and Big Green and Trump has removed more of those obstacles.  This is further evidence that the Democrats charges of collusion with Russia are just a bogus political ploy.