Sevastopol-class aircraft carrier

The Sevastopol class, Soviet designation Project 1160 Orel (eagle), was the second class of fixed-wing aircraft carriers (heavy aircraft cruiser in Soviet classification) and the first class of true supercarriers built in the Soviet Union for the Soviet Navy. They are the first nuclear-powered carriers produced by the USSR.

Procurement
The initial design for Project 1160 was drawing-boarded in the 1970s, around the time of the launch of the Kiev-class aviation cruisers. Intitial production was projected to begin in the 1970s, but political concerns delayed the project while the VMF overhauled the third of the Kiev-class carriers during the initial construction phase, constructing her as the traditional carrier Novorossiysk. The ship featured a ski-jump ramp and was equipped with an air wing of navalized MiG-23K fighters.

Lessons learned from Novorossiysk's construction and service saw some modifications made to the Project 1160 design, but the go-ahead was ultimately given, with an initial order of four ships. These ships were envisioned as a means for the Soviet Union to project power in the Pacific and Indian Ocean theatres - the North Atlantic being a particularly forbidding place for Soviet surface aviation but ideal for submarines, but with the global south undergoing steady development and with key regional allies in need of support. The first ship of the class - christened Sevastopol - was laid down in Nikolayev in 1979, just before the death of then-Chairman Alexei Kosygin. While delays slowed the construction of the ship, she underwent initial sea trials in 1987 before finally entering commission in 1989.

Initially launched with an air wing of MiG-23K and Yak-38 fighters, launched in a CATOBAR configuration, Sevastopol was later re-equipped with modern Su-33 and Su-37K aircraft along with the Yak-44 AWACS aircraft. All four ships of the class would ultimately be stationed in the Pacific, with occasional jaunts to the Indian Ocean or the South Atlantic.

Beginning in 2005, all ships of the class underwent mid-life upgrades, conducted two ships at a time. The upgrades replaced the ships' radar systems with more modern variants, removed the old steam catapults and replaced them with more efficient versions, and incorporated other new systems designed to keep the ships in service well into the 2030s.

Hull 1 - Sevastopol
The carrier Sevastopol was commissioned in 1989 and became fully operational in 1991 following years of sea trials.

During the winter of 1995-96, Sevastopol deployed to the Mediterranean Sea to mark the 300th anniversary of the Russian Navy. Later in 1996, the ship conducted a world tour alongside the cruiser Kirov and the destroyers Boevoy and Admiral Spiridonov, making stopovers in Lagos, Luanda, Quelimane, Padang, Amapala, Panama City, Port-au-Prince, and Alexandria en route.

Sevastopol deployed to the Black Sea in 2000 as part of the Second Chechen War. The ship's air wing conducted strikes in secessionist Ichkeria and contributed to the rapid fall of the breakaway republic.

In 2004, a Su-33 aircraft flying from Sevastopol sparked a brief international incident after repeatedly buzzing the United States Navy destroyer USS William Bishop in international waters near Cabo Verde. The incident was denounced by members of NATO as a blatant provocation, while the Soviet Navy wrote it off as the actions of an overzealous pilot.

In 2011, Sevastopol was ordered to join her sister ship, Lomonosov, in the Pacific for a deployment off the Chinese coast as part of the escalation of the Ili Standoff. With tensions rising between China and the USSR over China's claims to the East Turkestan SSR, the arrival of the two ships was viewed as a threat to attack the Chinese mainland from the east. Sevastopol remained in the area for several weeks while a de-escalation was brokered by officials from Sunda and North Vietnam.