The Indian Express, 27 August 2008
China works on matching India´s naval fleet
New Delhi: China is set to get its first functional aircraft carrier -- a refurbished Soviet-era Kiev class warship -- by 2012 and will use it exclusively to train Navy personnel for the three indigenous carriers it plans to induct over the next decade. While it is a known fact that the defunct Varyag aircraft carrier that was purchased from Ukraine as scrap for $20 million in 1998 was planned as a training platform for the Chinese Navy, India now believes that the warship will be ready for basic training operations as early as 2012...