Ukraine’s leaders and top military commanders say they will soon accept two Island-class patrol boats from the United States as part of Washington’s military aid to the country.
But it may have taken an outcry in the media to make it happen.
The donation has been delayed for three years, media reports said, because accepting the warships could take business from Kuznya Na Rubalskomy, a shipyard owned by Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko.
Speaking on April 4, Poroshenko played down the claims, saying the warships would be in service in the Ukrainian Navy soon. He said the Defense Ministry was completing “internal state procedures for the completion and approval of the draft contract that we received from the American side.”
“It is provisionally planned that in early May a group of the U.S. Coast Guard specialists will arrive in Ukraine for the final checks, and the signing of the contract,” Poroshenko added.
He also said that a few weeks ago a group of Ukrainian seamen had been selected to take exams and then be training in the United States to man the patrol boats.
According to the president, Ukraine’s navy will get the U.S.-produced boats at no cost, although their transportation to Ukraine and commissioning would still cost over $10 million.
Poroshenko’s statement followed accusations by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Schemes investigative program that the Ukrainian government had been deliberately stalling the transfer of the warships since 2014.
According to the journalists, taking the U.S.-produced boats could possibly cause cuts in a state defense procurement contract awarded to Kuznya Na Rubalskomy, a Kyiv-based shipyard owned by Poroshenko and his close political ally Ihor Kononenko, to produce Gurza-class patrol boats for Ukraine’s navy.
Poroshenko’s plant in Kyiv is the only enterprise in the country that produces small military vessels, the Schemes journalists said.
Commenting on April 4, Poroshenko said the Schemes investigation was “fake” and “incorrect.”
“Those constantly looking for treachery have really obscured the issue. Although, in my opinion, everything is very clear here,” Poroshenko said.
However, the official reaction regarding the Island-class patrol boat scandal has not yet calmed the waters for the authorities.
In a follow-up report reacting to the president’s comments, the Schemes journalists said the U.S. side was telling them another story off the record:
“Why do the officials in Washington, who are directly working on providing aid to Ukraine, say that there delays in the process from the Ukrainian side, particularly because of the probable business interests of Poroshenko’s plant,” Schemes journalists asked.
“Why have these American ‘presents’ been moored in the Port of Baltimore since 2014, instead of serving with the Ukrainian Navy in the Black Sea?”
