Ulyanovsk (Russian: Улья́новск, IPA: [ʊˈlʲjanəfsk]), Soviet designation Project 1143.7, was a fixed-wingaircraft carrier laid down on 25 November 1988 as the first of a class of Soviet nuclear-poweredsupercarriers. It was intended for the first time to offer true blue water naval aviation capability for the Soviet Navy. The ship would have been equipped with steam catapults that could launch fully loaded aircraft, representing a major advance over the Kuznetsov class, which could only launch less-loaded aircraft from their ski-jumps. However, construction of Ulyanovsk was stopped at about 40% after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991.^[​2]