MOSCOW - The preliminary assessment of the damage caused by the fire on board the Admiral Kuznetsov aircraft carrier may be given in the middle of the next week, United Shipbuilding Corporation (USC) head Alexei Rakhmanov told Interfax.
"The preliminary [understanding of the damage is may be made] in the middle of next week," Rakhmanov said.
Answering a question as to how this situation will impact the deadline of the ship's commissioning, he said, "I won't say anything until we enter the damaged areas and survey the defects."
A fire broke out on board the Admiral Kuznetsov, which is under repair in Murmansk, on December 12. The firefighting operation lasted 24 hours. The incident happened in the course of welding works. The press service for the Northern Fleet reported the death of a contract serviceman, who was helping extinguish the fire. It later said that the body of the second fatality, an officer of the cruiser's damage control section, was found.

In the early hours of October 30, 2018, one of the world's biggest floating dry docks, PD-50, sank at Shipyard No. 82 (in Roslyakovo, near Murmansk) as the Admiral Kuznetsov was making its way out of it. One of the dock's cranes fell on the carrier's deck. (Interfax)