This thread reflects many stereotypes about the Russian economy that simply isn't true.
First, the Russian economy growth has nothing to do with military sales OR oil, in fact neither have yet to make any significant impact on the GDP growth in Russia despite assumptions otherwise. There isn't enough oil investment in Russia yet for Russia to reap the rewards of their oil revenue potential, and everyone knows (or should know) that military sales really aren't big profits in teh grand scheme, otherwise major exporters like North Korea would be wealthy instead of starving.
I think this plan will happen for a number of reasons. First, people are ignoring (or may be ignorant of) the changes on the commercial side of Russia's Maritime industry, and its current modernization plan to be completed in 2009 for surface vessels. Second, people are ignoring (or may be ignorant of) the actual state of the Russian economy over the last 3 years, about its future, and why the 7-8% growth has nothing to do with oil or military sales. Third, people are ignoring (or again ignorant to) how Russia has been moving forward without money in their submarine industry, basically trading deployment funds for R&D on the only aspect of the Russian shipbuilding community that is functioning effectively (submarines) with virtually all funding invested in R&D for SSBNs, SSNs, and SSKs. That isn't a small thing, this investment plus overseas sales has kept the most expensive and technically challenging shipbuilding industry afloat. Finally, people are ignoring how the Navy has secured a full 25%+ of the total military budget, where in the USSR days it was at the bottom of the funding food chain.
Finally, the 6 ships are not aircraft carriers. As a child of the cold war some of us Americans learned to read Russian, which meant nothing to most of during the cold war but is nice today thanks to the internet. While I haven't found many of the details in English yet, details of the 6 ships is in the Russian media. They will be around 50,000 tons, support 30 planes and helicopters, and be nuclear powered. Most importantly, they are not aircraft carriers, rather described as aviation platforms in Russian, which means they are more likely to resemble the Kiev class than the Nimitz class.
Also look at the source. This isn't the usual low level admiral making statements, this is Masorin, who wouldn't make this announcement unless the political support already existed. He is too high level to go out on a limb like other admirals have in the past.
For details about why I think this plan will probably be executed effectively, including sources for my statements above, you can check out my
further detailed and source thoughts here.