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The starboard side of the former Soviet aircraft carrier Minsk moored in Shenzhen, China, as seen from a motorboat. (Wikimedia Commons / BrokenSphere)

Topic: Naval Warfare Blog Brand: The Buzz Region: Europe Tags: Aircraft Carriers, China, Kiev-class, Minsk, Russia, and Russian Navy How a Mighty Russian Aircraft Carrier Became a Burned-Out Husk in China February 11, 2026 By: TNI Staff Share

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The Soviet-era Minsk aircraft carrier, a hybrid warship designed for the Cold War, is now rotting away in a closed theme park in Nantong, China.

To describe Soviet-era Kiev-class vessels as “aircraft carriers” has always been a stretch. Unlike the hefty, flat-decked warships that function as floating airbases, the class more closely resembles a cruiser-carrier hybrid. They were built to fulfill the Soviets’ need for a sea-based missile platform during the Cold War. Despite the carrier’s armament-lugging capabilities, its overall effectiveness was sorely limited.

Today, the Kiev class warship is rotting away in a China-based theme park that is now closed.

Introducing the Kiev-Class Aircraft Carrier A starboard bow view of the Soviet aircraft carrier Kiev (CVHG 051) underway. (US Navy / Wikimedia Commons)

• Year Introduced: 1975
• Number Built: 4
• Length: 273 m (895 ft 8 in)
• Beam (Width): 53 m (173 ft 11 in)
• Displacement: ~45,000 tons full load
• Propulsion: 8 turbopressurized boilers, 4 steam turbines (200,000 shp), 4 shafts
• Top Speed: 32 knots (59 km/h, 37 mph)
• Armaments:
  • 80–200 surface-to-air missiles
  • 2 dual-purpose guns
  • 8 CIWS
  • 10 torpedo tubes
  • Air wing: ~30 aircraft, including fixed-wing and helicopters
• Crew: 1,200–1,600

Designed to rival American-made counterparts like the Kitty Hawk-class carriers, the Kiev-class vessels were specifically designated as “heavy aviation cruisers” when first introduced. Their layout was in part derived from the Orel full-deck carrier, a previous proposal that was ultimately scrapped during the draft phase.

Each ship in the Kiev class was constructed at the Ukraine-based Nikolayev South Shipyards, the primary Soviet manufacturer of large surface warships.

An angled flight-deck took up roughly two-thirds the length of the ships’ total deck, while the rest was dedicated to surface-to-air and surface-to-surface missiles. Each was equipped with eight SS-N-12 “Sandbox” anti-ship missiles that could carry a 2,000 pound high-explosive warhead or a 250 kiloton nuclear warhead. In terms of aircraft, the Kiev ships had launchers for about a dozen Yak-38 “Forger” jump jets and Kamov Ka-25/27/29 helicopters.

In total, the Soviet Union built four Kiev-class carriers prior to its collapse in 1991. None remain in service today. The first two ships in the class, Kiev and Minsk, were each laid up during Russia’s dire financial straits in the 1990s and sold to China as museums. The third in the class, the Novorossiysk, was ultimately scrapped. Only the final Kiev-class vessel, known at the time as the Admiral Gorshkov, remains in active service—but it is now serving with the Indian Navy, rechristened the INS Vikramaditya. 

The Sad Journey of the Minsk An illustration of the Minsk under construction. (Creative Commons)

The second carrier in the Kiev class—dubbed the Minsk after the capital of the Byelorussian SSR (today Belarus)—was commissioned into the Soviet Navy in 1978. The aircraft carrier enjoyed an unremarkable service life through the 1980s, and survived the collapse of the Soviet Union, entering service in the Russian Navy. However, following a mysterious accident in 1993, Minsk was retired and mothballed at the Chernomorskiy shipyard in Mykolayiv, Ukraine.

From there, the ship’s fate grew progressively more depressing. In 1995, she was sold to a South Korean company for scrap, but her planned scrapping was cancelled following environmental protests inside South Korea. The ship was resold to a Chinese entertainment company for a meager $4.3 million, intended to be used as the centerpiece of a military-themed amusement park in China’s southern city of Shenzhen.

The park—dubbed “Minsk World”—opened in 2000, and was for a time successful. (Minsk‘s sister ship, Kiev, became the centerpiece of a similar park in China’s northeastern city of Tianjin; it now operates as a luxury hotel.) At Minsk World, the carrier was displayed alongside Chinese Q-5 Fantan combat jets and Soviet-era MiG-27 and MiG-23 swing-wing jets. According to The War Zone, “Inert weapons, or mock-ups thereof, including missiles, bombs, and torpedoes, as well as other Soviet militaria were also displayed. Exhibits covering the Chinese military were also added.” The park even held song-and-dance numbers on an outdoor stage located atop the carrier’s aircraft deck.

But the Minsk‘s fate was far less fortunate; the park closed in 2006, was reopened under new management, then closed permanently in 2016.

The beleaguered aircraft carrier was towed to Zhoushan for repairs, before being moved to Nantong in China’s central Jiangsu province, in preparation for the opening of another theme park. But that theme park, originally scheduled to open in 2017, never materialized. In the years since, the Soviet-era cruiser has continued to rot away in a man-made lagoon near the Sutong Yangtze River Bridge in Nantong, China.

The latest, and perhaps final, disaster for the Minsk took place in August 2024, when the ship caught fire during new renovations. Although no injuries were reported in the blaze, footage showed enormous waves of fire sweeping the deck, gutting the ship. An official told China National Radio after the fire that it had “made the prospects of this project full of too many uncertainties”—meaning that the Minsk is likely never to open again.

This article originally appeared in July 2024 and has been updated to include more recent information. It was originally written by Maya Carlin.

All images are Creative Commons. 

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The post How a Mighty Russian Aircraft Carrier Became a Burned-Out Husk in China appeared first on The National Interest.

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