Why doesn't Russia have its own aircraft carriers like the United States of America? In order to answer this question, you will first have to slightly change and expand it, asking why the Soviet Union did not have aircraft carriers? After all, the current state of the modern Russian Navy is directly related to the Soviet legacy.
First of all, it is worth noting that there are two such concepts as continental power and maritime power. Behind the high-profile names, in reality, lies how the politicians of a particular country in the strength of the geographical and economic features of their state see their own military doctrine. For example, Russia has always been a continental power, although at certain stages of its history it tried to become a maritime one. On the other hand, some Great Britain since the second half of the New Age has finally turned into a maritime power. The United States of America, despite occupying almost half of the continent, has been a maritime power since the second half of the 19th century.
For politicians and the military of a continental power: the actual and psychological border runs along your sea coast. The sea protects you from enemies. For politicians and the military of a maritime power: the border does not run along your sea coast, but along the coast of your opponent. The sea itself must be protected from enemies. All this may sound too pathetic, but in reality such a pattern of thinking has existed in the heads of the powerful of the world today since the era of the late Middle Ages. From this directly follows the attitude towards the fleet.
The fleet of a continental power performs mainly patrol functions, support from the sea, and must also be able to operate effectively in closed seas. All this leaves an imprint on the specifics of the choice of types of military vessels. The fleet of a sea power is primarily needed in order to support the expeditionary forces of the ground forces, which most often perform combat missions far from their beloved homeland. Thus, the Soviet Union did not need aircraft carriers: the fleet of the USSR as a whole was quite weak on background of maritime powers, however, his forces were quite enough to perform tasks near the coastline and in closed seas. In addition, due to the "continental" specifics, much attention has always been paid to small interceptor ships and submarines - killers of other ships.
The United States of America became a maritime power back in the 19th century, and therefore its fleet increasingly began to operate not on the sea, but on the ocean. With the development of the Navy and the advent of aviation, it became necessary to create "floating airfields" to support combat ships from the air. After all, unlike maritime operations in closed seas, in the middle of the Pacific or Atlantic Ocean nearby there may not be an island with its military base and airfield capable of assisting a strike fleet. The Soviet Union never claimed a firm presence in the oceans, and therefore it did not need aircraft carriers.
Of course, there were ships in the USSR capable of launching aircraft from the side. However, they were few. First of all, these were aircraft-carrying cruisers, combining the functions of a cruiser - an attack ship with guns and an aircraft carrier. How do they differ, for example, from full-fledged American aircraft carriers in addition to having cruiser weapons? Scale. For example, the aircraft-carrying cruiser of the USSR "Kyiv", launched in 1972, had an aviation group of only 16 aircraft and 18 helicopters. On the other hand, some American aircraft carrier of the Nimitz type, launched in 1975, does not carry 64 aircraft and helicopters in the maximum configuration! However, the tasks of these similar military courts are still different, despite some external similarity.
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The first own aircraft carriers in the USSR were planned to be laid back in the late 1930s. However, very quickly, for the reasons described above, the idea was abandoned in favor of cruisers, boats and submarines, putting the concept of the first Soviet aircraft carrier on the back burner. Even in the 1930s, when considering a 25-year plan for the development of the Navy, the construction of aircraft carriers should not have begun in the first, or even in the second five-year plan. Then the Second World War, and then the Cold War, the creation of nuclear weapons and the emergence of the Department of Internal Affairs made their own adjustments to the plans.
As for modern Russia, in general, the concept and attitude towards the fleet of the country has not changed. Today, everything mentioned above is superimposed by the fact that the modern Russian Federation, in its industrial, scientific, resource and human potential and is not closely comparable not only with the Soviet Union, but in many respects even inferior to the RSFSR 1990 of the year. In other words, there is simply no money and enterprises capable of pulling such construction. And it is not clear why: Russian capital primarily claims regional leadership, and not global leadership. What elegantly illustrate the events of all recent years in the post-Soviet space.
In continuation of the topic, read about life under the heading "secret": what the Soviet closed cities actually were.
Source: https://novate.ru/blogs/060422/62642/