1912–1945: flying boats, torpedo bombers and the raids on Berlin

Russian naval flying is older than the Soviet state. English Wikipedia dates the first naval aviation units of the Russian Empire to 1912–1914, the service itself to 17 July 1916 (4 July in the old calendar), and the first regular Soviet naval air units to 1918. On 22 June 1941 the Northern, Baltic and Black Sea fleets and the river flotillas had 1,445 aircraft between them. Within seven weeks Baltic Fleet torpedo bombers did something no Soviet army unit had yet done: on the night of 7–8 August 1941 DB-3s flying from Kagul airfield on the Estonian island of Saaremaa bombed Berlin. In the Arctic, Boris Safonov of the Northern Fleet air force flew I-16s, RAF-supplied Hurricanes and P-40s from Vaenga and was credited by Russian historians with 20 solo and five shared victories before he went down covering convoy PQ-16 on 30 May 1942. By 1945, Wikipedia counts 17 Guards naval air units and 241 Heroes of the Soviet Union.

1945–1991: missile carriers, Bears and the Soviet carriers

After the war the navy built its air arm to do one job: sink American carrier groups from land. Tu-16 missile carriers were the backbone — 107 Tu-16KS alone were built for naval aviation between 1954 and 1958 — flying from new Arctic and Far East fields such as Severomorsk-3 (1950) and Kamenny Ruchey (1953). Tu-95RTs reconnaissance aircraft at Kipelovo watched Western navies from 1963; the Tu-142 hunted submarines from December 1972; the Tu-22M with Kh-22 missiles followed. At sea the navy went from helicopter cruisers to the Kiev class, commissioned from 28 December 1975, each with about 12 Yak-38 jump jets — a type that entered service on 11 August 1976 and was retired in 1991. In 1990 Wikipedia lists 79 VTOL strike aircraft, 219 helicopters, 269 bombers, 198 attack aircraft and 90 anti-submarine aircraft.

1991–2014: inheritance, retreat and the Su-33

The collapse of the Soviet Union left Russia with a carrier, Admiral Kuznetsov (commissioned 20 January 1991), and a carrier fighter, the Su-27K, first landed on its deck by Viktor Pugachyov on 1 November 1989. It also left the carrier-landing trainer NITKA at Saky, the Black Sea air bases and the training centres in an independent Ukraine. The money ran out. The Be-12 fleet fell from 55 aircraft in 1993 to nine in 2008; the Tu-16 was retired by 1995; in 1997 families blocked the runway at Kamenny Ruchey over unpaid wages. Only 24 production Su-33s were built, and the type entered service formally on 31 August 1998. The navy gained the MiG-31 regiment at Yelizovo in July 1998, moved its training centre from Ostrov to Yeysk in 2009–2010 — and in 2011 lost its Northern and Pacific Fleet Tu-22M3 bombers to the Air Force, ending naval missile-carrying aviation as Russia had known it.

2014–2017: Crimea, Saky and the Syria cruise

Two events then changed the service’s map. In early 2014 Russian forces took control of Crimea, including Saky and its NITKA complex. Russia calls this the accession of Crimea under a treaty of 18 March 2014; Ukraine regards the peninsula as occupied, and on 27 March 2014 the UN General Assembly, by 100 votes to 11 with 58 abstentions, adopted resolution 68/262 affirming Ukraine’s territorial integrity and declaring the referendum invalid. The 43rd Naval Attack Aviation Regiment rebuilt at Saky with Su-24s and new Su-30SMs. Then, from October 2016 to February 2017, Admiral Kuznetsov sailed to the eastern Mediterranean with Su-33s and the new MiG-29KRs ordered in 2012. Russian figures as quoted by Wikipedia claim 420 combat missions and 1,252 targets hit; the cruise also cost a MiG-29K and a Su-33 in arresting-gear trouble, and much of the air wing finished the war ashore at Khmeimim.

2022–2026: the war against Ukraine

Since February 2022 the service has fought in a war its maritime regiments were not built for. Wikipedia records a naval Su-30SM shot down near Bashtanka on 5 March 2022. On 9 August 2022 explosions at Saky destroyed at least eight aircraft: Russia’s Ministry of Defence spoke of a munitions accident and said no aircraft were damaged; Ukraine’s General Staff claimed nine; open-source analysts counted five Su-24s and three Su-30SMs destroyed. Ukraine has since claimed further hits on naval aircraft: two Su-30SMs shot down by Magura V7 sea drones west of Novorossiysk on 2 May 2025 and Be-12s at Kacha in September 2025; Wikipedia also records an Il-38N damaged at Yeysk in December 2025 and two Tu-142s reported destroyed at Taganrog in May 2026. Russia has confirmed few of these losses. Wikipedia’s count for 2025 is at least seven Su-30SMs and 10–20 Su-24s for the Aerospace Forces and naval aviation combined.

What is left, and what is missing

What remains is an air arm spread across four fleets (the Caspian Flotilla has no aircraft of its own), with the Northern and Baltic fleets placed under the Leningrad Military District in 2024. Its strengths are real but old: about 29 Tu-142s built between 1968 and 1994, about 30 Il-38s of which eight had been upgraded to Il-38N, MiG-31BMs in the Arctic and on Kamchatka, and Ka-27 helicopters, about half modernised by 2018. Its weaknesses are plainer. Admiral Kuznetsov has not sailed operationally since 2017; in September 2024 open-source analysts reported its crew sent to the army, and in July 2025 work on it was reported suspended. The Su-33 and MiG-29K regiments at Severomorsk-3 are carrier wings without a carrier. A 2020 contract for 21 Su-30SM2s and a plan for 50 in all are the only new combat aircraft in sight, and no replacement for the Tu-142 or Il-38 was named in the sources checked.

Current fleet and orders

Sukhoi, Antonov, Kamov, Ilyushin, Mikoyan, Mil, Tupolev, Beriev, Special Technology Centre

Former fleet

Yakovlev, Curtiss, Hawker, Polikarpov