Admiral Kuznetsov: Everything You Need To Know

• Weighing in at 61,390 tons (when carrying a full load), she's over 1,000 feet (305m) long overall and can carry 41 aircraft.

• Her teeth are, without doubt, her fighter jets. Traditionally, this has been 12 SU-33s. With a range of 1,864 miles (3,000 km), these carry 30mm cannons, air-to-air and anti-ship missiles, as well as various bombs and rockets. With the flotilla currently so close it can be seen from The White Cliffs of Dover, Britain would (theoretically) be well within range.

• Kuznetsov can also carry 5 4 Su-25UTG/UBP trainer aircraft, as well as 24 Kamov Ka-27 anti-submarine helicopters. She's also expected to be testing up to 20 MiG-29K/KUB fighters in this deployment, as well as Ka-52K Katran helicopters and new X-38 missiles - flying from the carrier for the first time.

• Her own defences aren't too shabby either. She carries six 30mm guns, which can each fire 6,000 rounds/minute, anti-aircraft guns and missiles (she can fire 192 missiles at a rate of one every three seconds), long-range anti-ship cruise missiles and rockets.

The Downsides:

• Unlike Western carriers, Kuznetsov doesn't have a catapult system. She relies on a ski-jump at the end of the deck to get planes airborne. This greatly limits aircraft payload, as fully-loaded jets can't accelerate above stall speed with too heavy a load. Kuznetsov's planes, therefore, take off with a light payload of air-to-air missiles.

• Also, perhaps unsurprisingly given her age, the carrier just isn't quite as modern as those created since by other nations. The US' most recently-commissioned carrier, USS George H.W. Bush, can carry 90 fixed wing aircraft and helicopters for example - and the US has 10 carriers to Russia's one. Britain's two new aircraft carriers, HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales, meanwhile, will be able to carry tailored groups of up to 40 aircraft each, including the more modern F-35B Lightning IIs (compared to Kuznetsov's aircraft), as well as Merlin, Wildcat, Chinook and Apache helicopters. They're not expected to be in service until next year (Queen Elizabeth) and 2020 (Prince of Wales) though.

• Russia's hampered by the fact that following the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, it lost access to the Nikolayev shipyards in Ukraine, which had built every one of its previous aircraft carriers. For this reason, it's had to reconstruct its aircraft carrier building industry within its current borders. It's now hoping, however, to be able to build new carriers domestically as soon as 2019.