The fire broke out on Thursday aboard the Admiral Kuznetsov ship, Russia’s only aircraft carrier, Russian state media reported.

The fire broke out on board the aircraft carrier on Thursday morning, which is currently docked at the docks of the Zvizdotsika plant in Murmansk, Russia’s largest city in the Arctic zone.

“There was a fire on board the Admiral Kuznetsov, which is located in the dry dock of the Zvizdotsik shipyard. There were no casualties, 20 people were evacuated,” the source of the TASS agency reported.

The source of the fire was located in the cabins on the port side, spreading over an area of ​​several square meters. The TASS agency also notes that the fire was attributed to a “high degree of complexity.”

United Shipbuilding Corporation (USC), a Russian ship repair company, said the fire had been extinguished around 11:30 a.m.

“It was a local fire, it was extinguished by the crew and representatives of the fire department, who are at the shipyards. The damage control system worked promptly, no damage or casualties were recorded,” Oleksiy Rakhmnanov, director of the OSK, told TASS.

“Admiral Kuznetsov” stood at the docks for repairs

Russia’s only aircraft carrier and the flagship of its fleet has been in the process of repair and modernization for more than 5 years, it entered service with the country’s Navy in 1991, after work on it began 9 years earlier.

The aircraft carrier was overhauled in 2017 after two months of fighting off the coast of Syria, and fighter jets aboard the flagship have flown about 420 sorties and hit 1,252 targets, Russian state media reported.

In 2018, when leaving the shipyard in Roslyakovo, it began to sink, but was saved by the crew.

This is not the first fire

This is not the first fire on board the only Russian aircraft carrier. In January 2009, a small fire broke out while anchored in Turkish waters, resulting in the death of a sailor.

In October 2018, the Admiral Kuznetsov was damaged when Russia’s largest floating dry dock, the PD-50, sank, causing one of its 70-tonne cranes to fall onto the ship’s deck, causing a massive breach.

More than a year later, in December 2019, a severe fire broke out on board the aircraft carrier “Admiral Kuznetsov” during its repair. As a result of the fire and smoke inhalation, two people died and fourteen were injured.

Alexei Rakhmanov said in an interview with Russian media late last month that the ship could return to sea in the first quarter of 2024 after more than seven years in dock.

The old aircraft carrier was built in Ukraine, its “sister” is Chinese

It was built by the Black Sea Shipyard, the only Soviet manufacturer of aircraft carriers, in Mykolaiv (Ukrainian Soviet Republic) and launched in 1985, and in 1995 it became fully ready for the Russian fleet.

The original name of the ship was Riga; she was launched as Leonid Brezhnev, sent for sea trials as Tbilisi, and eventually named “Admiral Kuznetsov” after Admiral of the Fleet of the Soviet Union Mykola Gerasimovich Kuznetsov.

Originally commissioned by the Soviet Navy, it was to become the flagship of two Admiral Kuznetsov-type aircraft carriers.

The Varyag sister ship was still unfinished when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. Its hull was eventually sold by Ukraine to China, completed in Dalian and sailed under the name Liaoning.