About the Kirov's, there is only one sea worthy (peter the great), the others are all mothballed and tied to a dock somewhere, most of them were cancelled before they were fininshed after the collapse of the Soviet Economy. The Russian Nay recently stated it wanted to get another Kirov ready for active service by 2010, but with the amount of work required they will be lucky to get it out of port again by 2016. A Russian Admiral also recently stated that the reactor on board the Peter the Great is in such a state of disrepair that it could fail at any moment, this was retracted by other Naval officials at a later date, but its quite a statement by any stretch of the imagination. I believe that the Russian Navy is quite simply knackered, its subs are rusting at their ports whilst their surface fleet isnt fairing much better. Inflation is also crippling the Russian defense budget, so even though money is being put in they are getting substantially less back in real terms due to the soaring inflation. Hell, they can't even afford to get rid of the old reactors, they have to get other people to get rid of them for them!
http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/0...ment-130384870
http://www.janes.com/news/defence/jd...0811_1_n.shtml