Russia's Liberal Democratic Party Hints Kremlin Could Purchase Chinese Carrier Liaoning from Beijing

Russia's Liberal Democratic Party recently suggested that the Chinese carrier Liaoning bought from Ukraine could be repossessed by repurchasing it.

Russia's Liberal Democratic Party Takes a Long Shot

Based on the most recent RIA Novosti, Sergey Karginov, the chief of the Russian Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), recommended last January 5 that Russia's government buy back the Soviet aircraft carrier that Ukraine had initially sold to China. The LDP is a right-leaning and ultra-national party that is all going for the Ukraine conflict.

Speaking to the media, Karginov contended that the incomplete aircraft carrier Varyag had been provided to Ukraine before being acquired by China and turned into a casino. After obtaining the ship, China finally built it and gave it the new name "Liaoning." The warship was initially envisioned as one of the leading ships of the USSR, reported The EurAsian Times.

One of the discussions by the LDP is that the Russian government could repurchase Liaoning and put it into service as Vladimir Zhirinovsky, the party's founder, who passed away last year.

The LDP's founder was an established ultra-national with Putin's dislike of Ukraine, along with former Soviet bloc members. He added after the dissolution of the USSR, Kyiv decided to sell it for the cost of a few vodka bottles or metal scrap. Russia must buy back the ship from China and name its founders the flagship of the Black Sea Fleet. Calling for the induction of Liaoning in the Russian Baltic fleet as a naval armada is sending assaults into Ukraine.

The spiel of the current LDP head is the Ukrainian claim that a ship in the Black Sea fleet has no Kalibr cruise missiles to use to mock Moscow, citing Pravda.

Furthermore, Kyiv has been attacking Crimea and Sevastopol Port, where the Baltic fleet is moored. The rather far-out idea is to buy the first Chinese aircraft carrier, Liaoning. However, it is questionable whether China planned to buy the vessel and how it was done.

First-ever Chinese Carrier

In 2012, Beijing officially launched Liaoning, the first aircraft carrier to bore the name of a Chinese province. The boat was a renovated Soviet Kuznetsov-class cruiser carrier purchased in half-completed condition.

The large ship, known initially as Kuznetsov and equipped with 12 P-700 Granit anti-ship missile systems, is armed with powerful weapons. Kuznetsov was designed to carry aircraft.

Classification is a technical point because the Montreux Convention prohibited "aircraft carriers" from passing the Black Sea to the Mediterranean through the Bosporus Strait; it was more than 15,000 tons.

The Varyag, the second ship of its kind, was left incomplete in Ukraine before the fall of the Soviet Union, with no arms or electrical apparatuses.

In 1992, the Ukrainian regime was desperate to sell the rusting metal hulk for scrap in its Mykolaiv shipyard. Later, the Chinese PLA planned for its navy to get the ship when it was better, as stated in a story by the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post in 2015.

In March 2002, the carrier was bought and taken to Dalian port, in dry dock, and it was finished three years later in 2011. The idea of Russia's LDP is unlikely that the PLAN would sell its Chinese carrier Liaoning back to Moscow.