Ukrainian trident god Neptune
... Well, here's what happened sooner or later was going to happen. Ukrainian fleet, which began its inglorious twenty-three years history, equally ingloriously "rested in the Bose." To be honest, sooner or later it should have happened, but no one imagined that everything would happen so quickly and so shamefully.
Yes, to have our own navy today is very prestigious for any state. The Navy is not just a symbol of the state, it is an extremely status thing. There is a modern Navy - it means that this state really is something like an independent political player, and as a full-fledged economic partner. No Navy - then did not take place. For this reason, the club of naval powers is very elitist, and therefore few in number. And this, of course, is not accidental. The fact is that the Navy is not at all a certain number of ships, as a man in the street thinks, but a most complex mechanism, the creation and adjustment of which takes decades, or even centuries. At the same time, this mechanism is so expensive that its creation and maintenance are within the power of stable and established states. That is why we today clearly see the trend of gradual folding of the navy in the states that have lost the status of politically and independent powers. There is no need to go far for examples - this is Poland (with its traditional exorbitant naval ambitions), and Romania, and Bulgaria, etc. Fighting their shipbuilding programs and such naval monsters as England, Spain and Germany. The Navy has always been very expensive, but today it is almost fantastic roads.
Therefore, each state today faces a choice - to create and maintain this expensive structure, or to actually part with it, taking up more pressing issues. Everything ultimately rests on the geopolitical tasks that a given state solves at a given historical moment and to the real economic power of the given state. Yes, and created naval fleets are not anyhow, as well as under the real geopolitical tasks of a particular state. If the state sees its tasks in the protection and defense of the coast - this is one fleet, in the protection of the sea economic zone - the other, in actions on the internal seas - the third, in solving global problems in the vast world ocean, the fourth.
By the way, and the Russian Navy in its development has passed a very difficult path. Created by the will of Peter the Great, he later survived all the inevitable childhood diseases and, in reality, he was on his feet only in the 70-x-80-s of the XVIII century. But Russia simply had no other choice. The fleet was vital to it (due to its geographical location and the foreign policy tasks that Russia had and must solve), and the oceanic fleet is numerous.
Well, now back to Ukraine. How pathetically began the history of its Navy in the early 90-s! How many were loud statements, pathos and arguments about Ukraine, as a new great maritime power.
Yesterday, Ukraine was only one of the many republics of the USSR, and now, having become an independent power overnight, it immediately decided to acquire all the state attributes, including the most prestigious of them - the navy. At the same time, nobody was particularly interested in the fact that at that time Ukraine had absolutely no prerequisites for this, either political, economic or psychological. There was only a whim and delusions of grandeur of the lords who had seized power. The fact that the fleet is created evolutionarily and gradually no one even wanted to think. Only revolutionary and only all at once. Yesterday we were still nobody, and today we will already be a great sea power! But was Ukraine really ready to create and maintain a modern naval fleet? What tasks would the fleet of this state have to solve? Today we can firmly say that Ukraine was completely unprepared for the creation and maintenance of the Navy. Yes, and the fleet for yesterday and today is not what it does not need, but even harmful, because until the last days of its existence, he ate most of the budget, without bringing any real benefits.
There is such a thing as a balanced fleet. This is a fleet in which all the component parts are thought out and verified: a certain number of specific combat ships built to solve specific combat missions correspond to a specific number of auxiliary vessels, data ships providing. Under these ships and vessels, a specific coastal infrastructure is being created, a system of personnel training, the most complex technological chain of shipbuilding cooperation has been built, science works, and propaganda work is conducted among the population. In Ukraine, nothing like this was in the bud. There were only exorbitant ambitions, stupid boasting and nationalist frenzy.
If you look at the history of the issue of birth, mournful life and the sad end of the Ukrainian fleet, it becomes obvious - this unfortunate child was initially unviable, and therefore the whole history of modern naval forces of Ukraine (Navy) is just a prolonged agony, which lasted almost a quarter of a century. Therefore, with a pure heart, we can state today that the poor fellow simply otmuchilsya. It seems that after the death of the Ukrainian fleet, they sighed with relief, above all in Kiev, because there is no fleet, and there is no problem! Perhaps, while they still do not understand it there, Ukrainian politicians are full of ambitions. But ambition is ambition, but reality is reality! And, alas, it is bleak for Kiev - the expensive experiment with the navy ended in a fiasco. However, it is common for our neighbors to again and again attack our own rake, and therefore I would not be surprised if soon in the next nationalist frenzy we will be announced about new grand plans for the creation of the great Ukrainian fleet. Well, we will have a reason to laugh again ...
Today, when crocodile tears are flowing on the Internet regarding the fact that independent warrants are being disarmed and escaped from ships based in Crimea, it should be recalled how it all began. The fact is that the history of the current Ukrainian fleet began from a very unattractive page — from an armed capture by a group of conspirators of the SKR-112 patrol ship and its hijacking to Odessa. According to all international norms, this was a real pirate campaign with all the ensuing consequences. At the same time, the Ukrainian press inflated this piracy to the size of a national feat. TFR-112 was declared the Aurora of the Ukrainian national revolution, and the criminal commander the hero. Particularly zealous dreamed of calling the rebellious guard "Ataman Sidor Bely" and even putting it on the Dnieper, like all the same "Aurora" to demonstrate to descendants. None of this happened. Arriving in Odessa, the demoralized insurgents staged a real orgy on the ship and in a matter of days brought the guard into total disrepair. At the same time they drank so fiercely that one of the officers died, choking on his own vomit. The failed Sydor itself was sold for scrap already in 1993, far from having reached its service life. Here is such a heroic ...
In principle, the entire history of the Ukrainian fleet is not a history of victories at all, as Ukrainian nationalists would have liked, but a history of permanent betrayal. So it was in 1918, when in order to avoid the capture of the German fleet in Sevastopol of the fleet, several pro-Ukrainian officers decided to raise the flags of Berlin’s union hetman Skoropadsky’s regime on ships, and then, literally in a few weeks, this danger disappeared, the yellow-blocking flags with such ease disappeared. The Ukrainian fleet was formed on the principles of betrayal in the 90 of the twentieth century. What is the attempt of the pirate capture of the submarine B-871, when the sailors, locked in compartments, threatened to blow up the submarine, if the Ukrainian nationalist officers did not leave it.
And what about the attack on the night of 10 on 11 on April 1994 of the Ukrainian military on the 318 division of the Black Sea Fleet reserve ships, located in the port of Odessa. Then the Ukrainian paratroopers in full arms broke into the base, beat the Russian sailors, looting, interrogated the midshipmen and officers with passion, and took the base itself into the Navy. And countless provocations in the military commander's office of Sevastopol, power seizures of ships in Nikolaev and coastal units — all of these are real “feats” of the Ukrainian military consortium. So do not Ukrainians complain about "polite silent people."
However, it was not necessary to expect anything else from the sailors of the Ukrainian Navy, as far from the best representatives of the naval officer corps went to the Ukrainian fleet. Naval Forces of Ukraine became the last refuge of losers, who tried to make a career on the wave of Ukrainian nationalism. A typical representative of this galaxy is the current Minister of Defense of Ukraine, Admiral Tenyukh, who at one time was decommissioned from the crew for professional incompetence to the coastal base. However, the worthless officer was distinguished by the highest national self-awareness and readiness to fight with Russia even now (at that time it was an obligatory condition for admission to the Ukrainian Navy), and therefore made a dizzying career. So what, that confused, but betrayed without flattery! And what about the behavior of the first commander of the Ukrainian fleet, Rear Admiral Kozhin, who, having pledged allegiance to the oath and to the Black Sea Fleet to Admiral Kasatonov, in the evening, the next morning, as well-known Mazepa, went over to the other camp. Well, what is not a hero of the Ukrainian nation! Not worse was the next commander of the Navy Vice Admiral Beskorovainy. Serving in the Northern Fleet, he considered that he was unjustly bypassed in the post there and immediately ran to Ukraine in order to satisfy his exorbitant ambitions. It is also a good example to follow, because where we pay more, we serve there. The third leader of the Navy Admiral Yezhel did not lag behind his senior comrades. Now, being the ambassador of the Maidan in Belarus, he fiercely calls for a crusade against Russia, which is quite natural - the admiral conscientiously works out his silver coins.
Surprisingly, the beginning of the Ukrainian Navy, as in a mirror, was reflected in its inglorious end - the flight to Odessa of the only Ukrainian frigate, the Hetman Sagaidachny. From flight to Odessa, the Ukrainian Navy began its history and completed the same flight. History tends to repeat, first in the form of tragedy, and then in the form of farce. At one time, a tragedy was a rebellion and an escape to Odessa of the Black Sea battleship Potemkin. Then everything repeated in the form of farce with TFR-112 and now for the third time with the escape to the same Odessa “Hetman Sagaidachny”. The fate of "Potemkin" was, as is known sad. The restless rebellious ship, after wandering a week across the Black Sea and receiving the nickname “wandering ship”, then surrendered to the Romanian authorities. TFR-112 ingloriously rotted at the pier and was sold for scrap. No need to be a visionary, to understand - the fate of the "hetman" will be just as bleak.
In addition to the ships and the coastal infrastructure in 90-s, Ukraine also acquired two naval schools, which were not needed at all. Well, why, for example, was the Square to take the Sevastopol Higher Naval Engineering School from Russia! After all, engineers of nuclear power plants for nuclear submarines were trained there. And nuclear ships in the Navy was not expected even in the distant future. But they took it anyway, partly from greed, partly from harm. Needless to say that SVVMIU soon ceased to exist, and VVMU it. P.S. Nakhimov dragged the most miserable existence. His graduates simply had nowhere to go, because Ukrainian fleet was simply not needed in such a number of graduates. So, the poor fellows went to serve as traffic police inspectors and firefighters. Here is a Ukrainian naval romance!
However, with regard to senior officers, they were regularly trained in NATO educational institutions, where they were taught not only to fight by Western standards, but also to hate Russia. This school was attended by many leaders of the Ukrainian Navy, including the current Minister of Defense of Ukraine. There was little confusion, however. Ukrainian ships have traditionally illiterately maneuvered, or else they were losing speed at joint NATO exercises, turning into a mockery for "strategic partners."
Probably, few people know, but in Lviv at the beginning of the 90-s a whole group of specialists worked, composing a special Ukrainian naval language and translating the Ship's charter and other documents into it. Of course, nothing good came of it either. And so, until the very last day, on naval command and control ships, teams were given in Russian, and technical documentation was also conducted in Russian, and Ukrainian military consortium also talked about service issues in Russian more than in readaway. The Ukrainian command words were used mainly in the inspections of Kiev chiefs.
For all the years of its stagnation, the Navy never became a real fleet, neither in combat training, nor in morale, nor in tradition. Recall that if the anthem of Ukraine is just a tracing from the anthem of Poland, the flag of the naval forces of Ukraine is tracing from the navy of Kaiser Germany. Who does not believe, compare these flags. Alas, but even in this, Kiev did not create anything of its own, as they say, neither the mind nor the imagination was enough.
I will not reveal a big secret, if I note that in Sevastopol the sailors of the Navy, unlike the Russian sailors, have always been disliked and even despised by the locals. How not to recall here the shameful provocation of the Ukrainian military authorities regarding the establishment of a memorial plaque on the Grafskaya quay of Sevastopol! Then the whole city got up against this Bandera action. It came to open confrontation and criminal cases, but the people of Sevastopol succeeded, and a memorial plaque in honor of the hated Ukrainian fleet was torn down and thrown into the sea.
The pirate birth of the fleet, defectors, commanders and contempt of the people of Sevastopol, as well as a sense of their own inferiority, almost immediately created an inferiority complex among the Ukrainian sailors. Psychologists know that this complex is manifested primarily in the creation of myths about their own greatness. And here Ukraine is truly ahead of the rest. What, for example, is the fact that after learning about the 1996 anniversary of the Russian fleet approaching 300 (in 1696, the boyar duma issued a decree that began: “The navy to be ...”), Lviv historians immediately declared that the fleet Ukrainian whole ... 500 years. True, at the same time, Western historians could not link the predatory Cossack ranks to the regular fleet. But is this a problem when it is necessary to prove that we are the best and most ancient!
And as it was loudly stated in Ukraine, the first submariners in the world are, of course, Ukrainian Cossacks, who allegedly turned their canoes, “gulls,” and in this “underwater form” swam across the abyss of the Black Sea for fear of the Turks. To actually prove their priority, the Ukrainian cadets of the former VVMU them. P.S. Nakhimov was ordered to conduct an experiment - to turn one of the pits up the bottom and swim as the brave Cossack submariners swam. Alas, nothing good came of it. Inverted Yal instantly sank, nearly burying the hapless submariners with him.
But does the funny story of the establishment of the day of the naval forces of Ukraine look like a joke? Ukrainian authorities changed the great day of the Ukrainian Navy, probably ten times. At first they tried to celebrate the spite of Russia their holiday before our day of the Navy, then, on the contrary, later. In the end, when it turned out that the Ukrainian Navy did not even have fuel oil to hold a naval parade, they immediately joined the Russians and walked for their money, as they say at your expense and to visit you. And it was quite anecdotal that the Kiev rulers in Sevastopol established a monument in honor of the Ukrainian fleet in the form of ... a drunken dancing Zaporizhzhya Cossack. Until now, I still could not understand why a drunk Cossack became the personification of the entire Ukrainian fleet? Maybe there is some great Ukrainian secret in this that we cannot understand! To the credit of the city authorities of Sevastopol, the eerie sculpture still had the sense not to put in the center of the city. She was hidden in the depths of one of the remote parks. We must pay tribute to the humor of Sevastopol, who today decided not to demolish the statues of the irresponsible Cossack, but leave it in memory of the brief convulsions of the Ukrainian Navy.
Of course, the ships captured and hijacked by the Ukrainian “heroes” by definition could never become a real fleet. However, this truth was not known to the independent naval commanders. Therefore, in the 1996 year, with the division of the Black Sea Fleet, they seized everything that could be grasped without thinking whether it was necessary or not. For example, the Naval Forces of Ukraine with joy tidied up part of the Black Sea Fleet’s arsenal, without even bothering to figure out what, in fact, is stored in the “Ukrainized” adits. The insight came later when, after examining the desired prey, the Ukrainian sailors became sad - the adits of the long-sawn cruisers of the 68-bis project and the battleships written off in the 50 of the 20th century were stored in absolutely no one's need. Counting how much it would cost to recycle all this grabbed "wealth" immediately spoiled the mood of the Ukrainian military leaders for a long time.
As you know, when the Black Sea Fleet was divided, Ukraine, foaming at the mouth, demanded exactly half of the ship and coastal infrastructure, claiming that this would be the beginning of the great Ukrainian fleet. Nobody wanted to think about any specific tasks for which the future fleet would be organized, about the real political and economic opportunities of Ukraine. The motto was one: grab as much as possible! In fact, everything turned out that almost all the ships and auxiliary vessels transferred to Kiev were immediately sold to foreign firms, fighting for scrap metal, and auxiliary to private firms. And the proceeds are divided between state men and naval commanders. It would seem, and sold everything, calm down! But it was not there. For nearly two decades, statements from Kiev and Lvov were heard about the imminent revival of the great Ukrainian fleet. Lviv theorists dreamed of an armada of amphibious ships, which would land the marines on the "Kuban belonging to Ukraine" and "liberate" the local Cossacks from Russian tyranny.
Well, and Kiev theorists, having long since broken away from the realities of life, dreamed of oceanic armadades. The product of these dreams was the development of the 58250 Corvette. These "ships of the twenty-first century" Ukrainian naval commanders intended to build as many 14 units to reveal their flag to the entire civilized world. But dreams are dreams, but realities are realities. Therefore, soon the 14 corvettes became 12, then 10, then 6, 4 ... Finally, it was announced that only one corvette would be built, but admirals of the whole world would see it from envy! The name of the future corvette was given with the claim “Prince Volodymyr”. Alas, it soon became clear that the lonely Volodimir would hardly ever come out to sea. The bravura messages about the planned course of construction quickly disappeared from the pages of the press, but there were reports of "some shortcomings in funding," then there was silence. Alas, but today we can say with confidence that if Ukraine is not able to contain even the ships it has, then what can we say about creating new ones! Therefore, the poor Volodimir apparently died in the womb of a shipbuilding plant, and did not see the sea. Eternal memory to him! However, you shouldn’t be particularly upset, because the newest nuclear submarine missile cruiser Prince Vladimir has already descended from the stocks at the famous Sevmash stocks. This “Vladimir” under the flag of St. Andrew’s really destined to conquer the world's oceans, inspiring respect and awe to our “strategic partners”.
The world naval history hardly knows such a wretched sight, which the Ukrainian Navy even represented during their heyday. What, for example, real combat tasks could be performed by a squadron of the Ukrainian fleet, when one enumeration of the types of ships included in it makes one doubt the mental normality of the Ukrainian naval commanders.
So, the flagship of the Ukrainian operetta armada - the border guard patrol ship of the ocean zone "Hetman Sagaidachny", deprived of not only the shock weapons, but also elementary air defense systems. From a military point of view, his combat capabilities are absolutely zero, and in a real naval battle he will be only an easy target, and at the same time a mass grave for his crew. The second miracle of the Ukrainian Navy is the Slavutych command ship, built as a self-propelled base for unloading and neutralizing nuclear submarine reactors. In the Navy, he portrayed the control ship! There are no comments at all. For what the Ukrainians needed this useless construction, does not lend itself to any logic.
About the firstborn of the Ukrainian submarine fleet, “Zvidorozhye”, the “fluids of the canoe”, so many anecdotes are told that only their retelling will take several pages. We only note that during the endless repair of this submarine, so much money was spent that would be enough to build several new submarines. As a result, the repaired "Zaporizhie" could only go once to the sea and, surrounded by all rescue forces, plunge into the periscope depth. Ukrainian submariners simply did not dare to dive further. On this actually all the combat activity of the Ukrainian submarine fleet and ended.
In addition, the panopticon in the Ukrainian fleet had three small anti-submarine ships, one of which was a border one and, therefore, also had no strike weapons and self-defense weapons. The landing forces of the Ukrainian Navy were represented by one large landing ship and one medium ship. There was, however, once and the newest landing ship hovercraft. But he was ruined by drunkenness, and therefore quickly blamed on needles. In addition, there were a couple of old minesweepers and several boats. That's the whole naval pride of Ukraine! In essence, Ukraine has not been able to create a real combat-ready fleet. A collection of random ships in its absurdity and absurdity more resembled a motley Cossack band than a regular naval unit. By 2010, it became apparent that the days of this “sea goblin” are numbered. Every year, fewer and fewer ships could not solve any real problems, and even just go to sea. Every year more and more ships were scrapped. At the same time, Kiev politicians strained themselves to pretend that everything was fine with the Ukrainian Navy, and he was already mortally ill, agonizingly agonizing. Therefore, even if Ukraine had not survived any of today's political upheavals, the Ukrainian Navy would have become history after all in 5-8 years.
The rapid development of events at the beginning of 2014, the fascization of Ukraine, the return of Sevastopol and Crimea to the Russian Federation did not constitute a last chance for survival for the Ukrainian Navy. One by one, the Ukrainian ships lowered their prokayzer flags and raised the St. Andrew flags. The fact that of the twenty-two thousand Ukrainian soldiers who served in the Crimea (and the lion’s share of them were officers and sailors of the Navy) only two thousand declared their desire to continue service in Ukraine, was a blow to the Kiev authorities. Although this fact is a completely logical result of the whole history of the Ukrainian fleet.
What, for example, cost messages, as on the ships blocked by the Sevastopol self-defense forces, the Ukrainian sailors proudly sang "Our proud Varyag does not surrender to the enemy, and allegedly shouted:" The Russians do not surrender! "Yes, the Russians really do not surrender, because serve their Russian Fatherland and the Russian flag, and the heroic Varyag, as is known, has no relation to the ostentatious "courage" of the Ukrainian military inspectors, since this is a song about the Russian ship under the Russian flag, but not about the Ukrainian ship: "We are in front of the enemy did not let down proud Andrew lag ... "It is significant, but there was no Ukrainian sailors of his example to follow than the example of the Russian cruiser" Varyag ". It is also indicative that none of the Ukrainian sailors did not even think to shout: “Ukrainians do not surrender!” And this is understandable, because, as a matter of fact, Ukrainians surrender and move from one camp to another everywhere and always. Not bad it turns out today and the Ukrainian sailors.
Bacillus of betrayal, which gave birth to the Ukrainian naval forces twenty-three years ago, eventually destroyed them. Admiral Tenyukh, already known to us, the deputy commander of the Ukrainian marine battalion, recently accused of betrayal on the air and defiantly left the air. In response, Tenyukh just mumbled something. All this is completely natural ...
Now in Odessa, the last of the Ukrainian ships, the Hetman Sahaidachny, and several fragile boats have found refuge. The fate of the remnants of the Ukrainian Navy is so sad that I feel only pity for them. These fleets of fleet are not needed today neither by trade Odessa, nor Kiev, which is on the verge of economic catastrophe. The circle closed - the fleet, which began its history with treason and betrayal, self-destructed itself as a result of the same betrayal.
When W. Churchill said a wise phrase: "In order to build a ship you need only three years, in order to create a sea nation you need three hundred years!" Alas, but the Ukrainian naval experiment proved once again the correctness of these words. In the twenty-three years of independence, Ukraine did not have either ships or a maritime nation like that. And therefore the trident crowning the coat of arms of Ukraine did not become the trident of the god of the seas of Neptune, yes, apparently, it will never be. But we should not grieve about this!
- Secretary of the Writers' Union of the Russian Federation, captain of the 1 rank V. Shigin
- http://www.simvolika.org/mars_147.htm
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