In early January 2017, it was announced that "Admiral Kuznetsov" and her battlegroup would be ceasing operations in Syria and returning to Russia as part of a scaling back of Russian involvement in the conflict. During her deployment off Syria, aircraft from "Admiral Kuznetsov" carried out 420 combat missions, hitting 1,252 hostile targets. On 11 January 2017, "Admiral Kuznetsov" was conducting live-fire training exercises in the Mediterranean off the coast of Libya. The Russian defence ministry announced that on 11 January, "Admiral Kuznetsov" was visited by Libya′s military leader Khalifa Haftar, who had a video conference with Russian defence minister Sergey Shoygu while on board.