WASHINGTON — Two Ukrainian Navy cutters went to sea last week to finalize seaworthiness trials and to test a new missile system in a demonstration of strength to the Russian Navy in response to dangerous aggressive maneuvers it conducted against a lone Ukrainian boat in the Black Sea which could have sunk it and a Russian vessel.
The two new boats, launched in 2019, are Ukrainian-made of a class of vessels named Centaur, which combines attack and landing craft capabilities.
The Ukrainian Navy said the vessels, which can travel at speeds of 30 knots per hour, are designed to speedily approach a beach to land assault groups of up to 36 men.
They are armed with powerful S-8 missile systems that can hit seaborne and land targets. Naval engineers have modified their targeting systems to fire more accurately by compensating for the vessel’s movement in different sea conditions.
During the tests last week the boats, while operating in moderate storms, hit targets on land at a distance of several kilometers.
The head of the Ukrainian Navy’s construction department, Vasyl Radchuk, said that the weapons system had proven itself during the firing exercises and had provided information that was needed to calculate remaining adjustments before it went into service.
He said: “The [S-8] system that had been designed for destroying ground targets from the air really showed itself very capable for use as a surface-to-surface weapon. The mathematics needs some additional calculations and the system needs some adjustments but overall I regard the tests as now completed.”
The two vessels which have been undergoing trials for several months will soon be put into Navy service while a third is near completion at a boatyard.
Rachuk, who accompanied then-Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko to America in 2018 for an official ceremony to receive two U.S. Coast Guard cutters donated to the Ukrainian Navy, said the trials of the Centaurs and the weapons tests had yielded positive results: “We were pleasantly surprised at how well they performed.”
Warning to Russia
The missile test was also seen as a response to an incident last month
when a Ukrainian patrol boat repelled Russian naval vessels using dangerous maneuvers to try to intimidate the Ukrainian vessel in international waters in the Black Sea.
The near-clash happened during the night of March 10 when the Ukrainian patrol boat Pryluky was on a training mission in the northwest portion of the Black Sea near a platform in the Golitsyn gas fields which belong to Ukraine but were captured by Russians when they took Crimea.
The Pryluky’s commander, Volodymyr Uhlinsky, described how a Russian Navy missile boat, the Shuya, and a patrol vessel belonging to Russia’s FSB secret police, the Bezuprechnyi, covertly approached the Ukrainian vessel under cover of night.
The Shuya came within about one cable (a tenth of a nautical mile or some 185 meters) with its navigation lights switched off. The distance, in sea terms, was dangerously close and in violation of the International Rules for the Prevention of Collision of Ships.
Even with lights, the maximum permissible distance for approaching at night is some 30 cables. A Ukrainian naval captain that the distance between the two vessels meant the slightest error could have caused a catastrophe. He compared the proximity to two cars missing one another by just a few centimeters.
As the Shuya came close it turned on powerful floodlights in a bid to dazzle the Ukrainian crew. But, according to the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense, the Ukrainian sailors had already spotted the approach of the enemy vessel and raised a combat alarm.
As the Shuya saw the Ukrainian vessel making ready for action against the Russians promptly went about and fled.
The Russians also used a helicopter drone to observe the Ukrainian boat.
Lieutenant Commander Uhlinsky, praised the way his sailors reacted and the crew’s coherence and battle-readiness. “They reacted confidently, determinedly and, most importantly, rapidly,” he said.
Ukraine charts course to attain NATO standards
He said that combat missions and exercises are conducted in accordance with NATO standards as part of the Ukrainian armed forces’ commitment to achieving ever-closer interoperability with the North Atlantic alliance.
The incident had echoes of the November 2019 unprovoked attack by Russian ships against three Ukrainian naval vessels passing through the Kerch Straits into the Sea of Azov.
Moscow’s action caused international outrage as the Russian vessels opened fire on two small Ukrainian naval vessels and an unarmed tug, wounding three Ukrainian sailors. All 24 Ukrainian sailors were illegally imprisoned for more than a year in Russia.
The subject of how soon Ukraine’s armed forces can attain NATO standards caused controversy last month when Ukraine’s new Minister of Defense, Andrii Taran, in an address to the General Staff, said that Ukraine would not be able to fully adapt to NATO standards in the near future.
Taran was dismayed that some commentators apparently took that to mean that Ukraine’s military was shying away from achieving the NATO goals.
He said: “In 2019 Ukraine adopted amendments to the Constitution clearly identifying the strategy towards achieving Euro-Atlantic integration.
Taran said Ukraine’s ultimate goal is to return all its occupied territories, stop Russian military aggression and restore the international order and peace, crudely violated by Moscow when it invaded Ukraine in 2014.
He said: “Today nobody but NATO is capable of helping Ukraine to achieve this. There is a clear understanding that the only way to build strong and self-sustainable Armed Forces, which deserve the highest respect, is through close cooperation with NATO allies.”
The Ukrainian Ministry of Defense has set up a process to monitor progress in implementing interoperability between Ukraine’s and the alliance’s forces and achieving NATO standards. Kyiv will this year identify new partnership goals for the next two years.
