[ikalugin]

There is only a point to scrap a ship when it is no longer usefull or cost effective. If you look at Kirov class modernisation programs and compare those ships, in terms of armament, to other options (ie building new Frigates) you would notice that those refits are very cost effective.

Same goes for the Oscar-II, 3rd generation SSNs (with AM refit turning them into Oscar-IIIs), those are not only critical for a number of old missions (conventional deterence, AShM strike) but also for a bunch of new missions (land attack strikes in case of Oscar-IIIs, as those carry 72 rounds in their launchers, making them very cost effective when compared to Yasen class).

Again, Russian shipbuilding programs are not limited as much by funding, but rather by the industrial capacity, which in turn is limited by the economy and workforce sizes. Even now various industries fight for their workers and decisive expansion is simply not possible.
That said, there is a new shipyard being built (Zvezda-DSME), but that won't begin building anything of note untill 2017 and, chances are, won't get into big time naval construction till later (unless we decide to lay down carriers there). As you would understand a shipyard that becomes availiable in 2 years won't begin releasing large, serial production ships to Navy till well after 10 years into the future.

Nikolaev shipbuilding cluster is dead, as a number of other old soviet shipyards. We are trying to reanimate stuff in Crimea with ordering construction of auxilaries there, but we would see how it goes.

Kuznetsov indeed did not participate in Syrian events, however it is the only way to project power Russia has that does not require air bases. Thus carrier is another important capability to have, especially if Russia plans to operate outside of it's borders. Without that carrier LHDs have very little value.

As to the old equipment. That equipment allows Russian Navy to conduct critical missions today, such as:
- deterence SSBN patrols.
- control of the economical area.
- maintaining the Navy's skill base.
- global show of flag/counter piracy/armed intervention (cruiser Moscow off Syria) missions.

If those ships can be replaced with new ones, then we should do so, but the rate we could replace ships is limited. For example - the true workhorses of Russian Navy - pr.1155 Large ASW ships require to be replaced with atleast one pr.22350 Frigate each (would still lead to a loss of capability in ASW department, as pr22350 operates one helicopter vs 2), with requirement of atleast 8 such ships. While it is possible to produce 8 22350s in 10 years (and we would probably do that), keeping the 1155s (with some form of refit) would allow us to expand our operations untill we could build 8 more 22350/22350Ms.
Replacing the core ships of surface action groups - cruisers would be even more difficult, as we didn't even lay down the first ships of those classes. Thus cruisers are here to stay for more than 10 years, cutting them earlier would lead to loss of critical capabilities.