If their efforts to build a blue-water navy were just a 'sop', they sure made it look serious, for the Udaloy and Kirov-class ships were no pushovers...and they weren't cheap, either.

I would say instead that they were indeed trying to compete, for with a true blue-water navy comes a unique form of national prestige, and prestige is near the top of the priority list of any dictatorship.