Horns and legs left ...

The naval forces of Ukraine (Navy) this year turned 18 years old. Age of majority. However, their actual transformation into a more or less full-fledged type of armed forces did not take place by decree of President Leonid Kravchuk on April 5, 1992, but after the division of the former Black Sea fleet USSR. Then, in 1997, the former Soviet republic received 138 of its ships and vessels, a significant number of coastal infrastructure. Alas, it was not possible to preserve all this wealth: the country's economy was not able to “pull” such an extensive and complex economy. For example, all three patrol ships of the Burevestnik type were decommissioned, and they lost the Naval Forces and the unique small Zubr hovercraft.

However, the formation of the Navy occurred. They exist, have combat-ready ships, aircraft and ground weapons and are a force factor in the Black Sea. True, not too powerful - in the line of foreign military fleets in this theater, the Ukrainian fleet is in the same positions with the Bulgarian Navy, inferior to the Romanian, not to mention Turkish. The latter are now superior in all respects to the Russian Black Sea Fleet (without taking into account its nuclear potential). And this despite the fact that after the collapse of the USSR, Ukraine got first-class shipyards, where you can build ships of any class, right up to aircraft carriers.

WHAT AHEAD?

In general, watching Russian officers and sailors speaking in Russian (they are distinguished from our Black Seamen sailors except arm-bands with the blue cross of the naval flag of Ukraine), communicating with them, you do not feel any mutual estrangement. By the way, it should be noted forgotten in Russia (by the way, still in the USSR), but the tradition revived in the Ukrainian fleet of putting the names of warships on ribbons for a cap. So if, walking through Sevastopol (more reminiscent of today Greenovskiy Zurbagan than the formidable base of the fleet), you will see a sailor with the proud inscription “Zaporizhzhya” on the ribbon, you should know: you are not anyone who, but a submariner with the only one in the Navy and quite an epic submarine “ Zaporizhia. Epic because it was still "put into operation" since it was transferred to the Ukrainian Navy.

Addressing 4 of July, on the Day of the Fleet of Ukraine, to the staff of the Naval Forces, the new commander-in-chief Viktor Yanukovich, who was on board the flagship frigate Getman Sagaidachny, said that the development of the fleet is a priority of the government and personally as president of the country.

How this development will be is not yet completely clear. In any case, the Ukrainian "defense industry" and shipbuilding still did not show themselves, except for small boats for maritime border guards. It is known about the intentions to start building for the IUD a new 1200-ton corvettes, but there is little concreteness here. And the fleet is content with what it is. The problems that plague him, for example, are shown by the fact that rocket boats of the Whirlwind type arrived in Sevastopol Bay in tow to take part in the 4 parade in July - a crisis, however. Solar today.

Today, the Navy serves about 15 thousand people. Organizationally, the Ukrainian naval fleet consists of a center of naval operations with subordinate forces, a Southern and Western naval base, a river ship brigade on the Dnieper (training boats, base - Kiev), a marine aviation brigade, coastal defense center, service and support units. The Navy also includes a special-purpose marine radio engineering unit (its radars can be seen on the picturesque Ai-Petri Mountain) and the State Oceanarium of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine research center. The fleet is based in Sevastopol, Balaklava, Novoozernoye (on Lake Donuzlav), Yevpatoriya, Kerch, Nikolaev, Ochakovo, Odessa, Black Sea and Feodosia.

Officers are trained at the Nakhimov Academy of Naval Forces (previously, the Sevastopol Naval Institute, and before that - the Black Sea Higher Naval School of the USSR Navy). It also has a senior naval college.

CALCULATE PARLIAMENTS ...

The center of marine operations is the main part of the Ukrainian fleet. Its main connection is a squadron of disparate forces. Directly subordinate to its command are the large diesel submarine Zaporozhye of the 641 project and the reserve control ship Donbass, reclassified from a floating workshop. The core of the compound is a brigade of surface ships (Chicken Bay of Sevastopol), which includes the flagship frigate “Getman Sagaidachny” of the 1135.1 project, the control ship “Slavutych” of the 12884 project, the large landing ship “Konstantin Olshansky” of the 775 project, the medium landing ship “Kirovgrad project of the project St. Petersburg project). and anti-diversion boats "Theodosius" and "Naked Pier".

The core is the core, but the main striking force of the country's fleet is the crew of missile boats based in the Streletsky bay, consisting of the RK Pridneprovye and Kremenchug 1241.1 project (of the Molniya type), as well as Priluki and Kakhovka "project 206МР (type" Whirlwind "). Boats like "Lightning" are classified in the Navy as corvettes - so that it sounds more solid. All of them are armed with Termit anti-ship missiles with a range of 80 km. The last time training shooting "Termite" took place two years ago. Expensive is fun.

The crew of the ships for the protection of the water area, which is part of the squadron, settled in the Southern Naval Base on the Donuzlav Lake. There are small anti-submarine ships (they are corvettes) of the Albatros-type 1124 project - Lutsk and Ternopil, the 1241.2 project - Uzhgorod and Khmelnitsky, the 1124P project - Vinnitsa, and the 266M sea trawlers - Chernigov "And" Cherkasy ". The combat capability of "Uzhgorod", "Khmelnitsky" and "Vinnitsa" is extremely doubtful. As for "Lutsk" and "Ternopil", completed from the Soviet reserve on the Kiev "Leninskaya smithy", respectively, in 1994 and 2006, these are the newest combat units of the Navy. By the way, small anti-submarine ships (corvettes) on the Lviv and Lugansk underwater wings of the 1145.1 project are in a high degree of readiness at the Feodosia shipbuilding plant “Lion” - the same as the only one in the Black Sea Fleet of Russia “Vladimirets” that can be seen at the pier in the South Bay of Sevastopol. But whether they will be introduced into the combat composition of the Navy, is unknown.

By the way, the minesweeper Chernihiv before 2004 was called “Yellow Waters”, about which Russian sailors witted: “Yellow Waters” went to the Black Sea ”. Now the reason for the exigencies remained with their Ukrainian colleagues, since only Mineralny Vody now emerges into the bluest sea in the world — so managed someone to name one of the base minesweepers of the Black Sea Fleet.

In addition to the squadron, in the center of naval operations of the Naval Forces of Ukraine there are separate battalions of ships guarding the water area. In Odessa, such a battalion includes the 1258 project sweeping minesweeper (the mine-sweeper according to the Ukrainian classification) and the Pivdenny gunboat - the training Polish project 772, on which they installed an 14,5-mm anti-aircraft machine gun sparks. There is also a pair of multipurpose boats of the Yaroslavl type with machine guns. In the Donuzlav division of the OVR, there is a base minesweeper "Melitopol" of the 1265 project. Another such minesweeper, “Mariupol”, is in the sludge.

The center of the maritime special operations can be considered the most secret part of the Naval Forces of Ukraine - this is the former special brigade of the Soviet Black Sea Fleet. Ukrainian combat swimmers stationed in Ochakovo and on Pervomaisk Island. The center includes detachments of underwater mining, underwater demining and the breakthrough of anti-amphibious barriers, reconnaissance and anti-sabotage combat. He was assigned a patrol boat of the 1400M Skadovsk project and self-propelled amphibious scout ships Svatove and Bryanka based in Ochakovo.

Auxiliary vessels and the fleet's base floating craft are brought to the center of search and rescue operations and divisions of support vessels based in Sevastopol, Donuzlav and Odessa.

THERE ARE WINGS AND SPECIAL COUNTRIES

Naval Air Naval Aviation Unit located at the airfield in the vicinity of the resort town of Saki. It includes aviation and helicopter squadrons. The first has four Be-12 amphibian hydroplanes designed for anti-submarine defense and search and rescue tasks, a pair of light military transport aircraft An-26 and an An-2 biplane, which is attached to the center of maritime operations and provides parachute training for its personnel in Ochakovo. In the helicopter squadron - eight anti-submarine and search and rescue ship Ka-27 and amphibians Mi-14, several ship-based transport and combat rotary-wing Ka-29 and conventional landing-transport Mi-8. One of the Ka-27 helicopters is based on the Hetman Sagaidachny frigate.

The coastal defense center is what happened as a result of organizational measures to which the 32nd Army Corps and the 10th Separate Marine Corps transferred to the Navy were subjected, as well as units of the Black Sea Fleet coastal missile and artillery forces that had left Ukraine. Today, the center includes a separate coastal defense brigade with headquarters in Simferopol, a separate battalion of marines in Feodosia and a separate coastal missile division. In a separate coastal defense brigade there are scattered around the Crimea tank a battalion equipped with a T-64 MBT, three mechanized battalions, a brigade artillery group with 122 mm self-propelled (Carnations) and towed (D-30) howitzers, and Grad multiple launch rocket systems, an anti-tank artillery division with 100- mm Rapira cannons and the Konkurs self-propelled anti-tank missile systems, the Shilka anti-aircraft missile and artillery division with the Shilka self-propelled anti-aircraft systems and the Strela-10 self-propelled air defense systems, the naval engineering battalion, the electronic warfare company and support units.

In a separate coastal missile division, there are two mobile Rubezh coastal missile complexes with Termit launch missiles. In addition, when parting the Black Sea Fleet, Ukraine got a long-range operational-tactical stationary coastal missile system "Cliff" near Balaklava ("100 object"). Today, he has left what is called the horns and legs. By the way, this object is known to all who have seen the movie “Solo Voyage” - in it he “played” for the Americans, who really didn’t have anything like that.

The State Aquarium of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine is located in the Cossack Bay and on Cape Fiolent. There are carried out research related to aquanautics and, presumably, experiments with dolphins carried out during the Soviet era in the interests of the fleet have been reanimated. Two vessels are assigned to the oceanarium - the diving Pochaev and the experimental Kamenka; its personnel also have underwater vehicles - the inhabited Reef, Langust, North-2 and remote-controlled ones.

MARBLES UNDER MARINE PROTECTION

In a broad sense, an integral part of the military fleet of Ukraine are parts of the maritime security of the State Border Service of the country. In composition, they are not inferior to the Azov-Black Sea units of the Coast Guard of the Border Service of the Federal Security Service of Russia.

The Ukrainian sea guard consists of Izmail (river, on the Danube), Odessa, Sevastopol (in Balaklava), Yalta and Kerch detachments, Mariupol separate division and the Dnieper river group. It has border patrol ships (in fact small anti-submarine ships) of the 1241.2 project - “Grigory Kuropyatnikov”, “Poltava” and “Grigory Gnatenko”, the 205P project - “Volyn”, “Nikolaev”, “Heroes of Kerch”, “Bucovina”, “Donbass” , Odessa, Zakarpatye and Pavel Derzhavin, river armored boats of the 1204 project - Izmail, Lubny, Nizhyn and Kanev, 12 patrol boats of the 1400M, approximately 70 small boats of new Ukrainian projects Kalkan "," Katran "," Galleon-280 "," Galia-640 "," Hvil ", UMS-600, messenger boats of the project 14670" Lviv " and "Krivoy Rog" and other plavedinitsami.

Until recently, the border guards had a high-speed gas turbine paratrooper on the hydrofoil “Galychyna” of the “Antares” type (133 project), but, as it became known, he had already served his own. The presidential pleasure yacht Crimea of ​​the 1360 project, the sister of the Russian presidential yacht Kavkaz assigned to Sochi (both, by the way, to Eclipse of Roman Abramovich as Oka before) Bentley ").

The marine guard operates the oldest Ukrainian warship, the Danube headquarters, in the Izmail squad. This is the former minesweeper of the German Navy "Grafenau", built in 40-s and captured by the Red Army as a trophy.

According to plans published by the White Books on Ukraine’s defense policy for the coming years, the Navy is to have 15 combat ships, not counting boats, 4 anti-submarine aircraft, 10 anti-submarine helicopters, coastal defense forces - 39-65 artillery systems caliber over 66 mm and 100 armored combat vehicle while maintaining the existing organizational structure. And this means that in the foreseeable future, no special development of the Naval Forces Command seems to be seen. However, it should be borne in mind that these are the plans of the times of Viktor Yushchenko’s presidency. The same period includes talks about the intention to receive, in the form of military assistance, any ships from the United States that are not needed by the American fleet.

Conversations, however, remained conversations. Whether the naval priorities of the new president of Ukraine will be realized and on what scale, the future will show. By the way, in that holiday address to the Ukrainian sailors (sounded in Russian), Viktor Yanukovych noted the intensification of cooperation with Russia, which could hardly have been expected from his predecessor.

However, Kiev is clearly not going to curtail cooperation with NATO in the naval area. Evidence of this is the multilateral anti-piracy exercises "Sea Breeze-2010" held in July on the Black Sea, in which, along with Ukrainian ships, the American frigate Taylor and the Turkish Yavuz took part. In addition to Ukrainian aviation, the P-3 “Orion” base patrol aircraft of the United States and the German Transal C-160 “Transal”, which dropped the Ukrainian landing force on the Wide Lan landfill in the Mykolayiv region, helped the fight against conditional pirates. Georgian and Moldovan infantrymen were also involved in the maneuvers.

However, the Russian Navy also periodically works out all sorts of counterterrorism and search and rescue introductory exercises at joint exercises with the North Atlantic alliance. Therefore, it is possible that the Russian fleet will also appear on the Sea Breeze.