Admiral Flota Sovetskogo Soyuza Kuznetsov is an aircraft carrier serving as the flagship of the Russian Navy. It was built by the Black Sea Shipyard, the sole manufacturer of Soviet aircraft carriers, in Nikolayev within the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic and launched in 1985, becoming fully operational in the Russian Navy in 1995. The initial name of the ship was Riga; it was launched as Leonid Brezhnev, embarked on sea trials as Tbilisi, and was finally named after Admiral of the Fleet of the Soviet Union Nikolay Gerasimovich Kuznetsov.