Thread by @RALee85

So the 2 new Project 11711 large landing ships will, in fact, be structurally different from the Ivan Gren and Pyotr Morgunov, though no word whether they will be called Project 11711M. In particular, the new ships will be able to carry more helicopters.
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The ships' superstructure differs from the previous Project 11711 ships, and Alexei Rakhmanov told reporters that the displacement will be greater, between 7-8k tons (the Ivan Gren's displacement is 5k tons), and they will be able to carry (apparently 2 or more) Ka-52K helos. 2/

Russia's amphibious fleet currently lacks much a of a helicopter component (and Russia had no solid alternative for replacing the Mistral helicopter carriers purchased from France). Most amphibious training exercises involve Naval Aviation supporting the landing from airfields.3/

So this change would give Russian amphibious forces a greater air support or vertical envelopment capability beyond the reach of land-based naval aviation. Though, of course, this would still be limited, and not comparable to an LHD/LHA amphibious assault ship. 4/

However, the changes to the ships mean there is a greater chance that things will go wrong and their development might be delayed. As of now, the two new landing ships, the Vladimir Andreev and Vasily Trushin, are scheduled to be delivered to the VMF in 2023 and 2024. 5/

The Russian Navy is not a priority for funding under GPV-2027, and it has a # of needs so talk of building a new aircraft or helicopter carrier is mostly aspirational. Moreover, there are still doubts about whether the Kuznetsov will be repaired and operational soon. 6/

So building more Project 11711 ships make sense, instead of proposing a radically new ship. But most of Russia's fleets will still lack a serious amphibious assault capability, and Project 1171 and 775 landing ships are aging rapidly, particularly supporting the Syrian Express.7/