… Well, that's what happened that sooner or later had to happen. The Ukrainian fleet, which began its inglorious history for twenty-three years, has just as ingloriously "rested in the Bose." To be honest, sooner or later this should have happened, but no one imagined that everything would happen so quickly and so shamefully.
Yes, it is very prestigious for any state to have its own navy today. The navy is not just a symbol of the state, it is an extremely high-status thing. There is a modern Navy, which means that this state really is something, both as an independent political player and as a full-fledged economic partner. If there is no navy, then it did not take place. For this reason, the club of naval powers is very elitist, and therefore not numerous. And this, of course, is not accidental. The fact is that the Navy is not at all a certain number of ships, as the average man thinks, but a very 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 is within the power of stable and established states. That is why today we clearly see the tendency of the gradual curtailment of the navies 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), Romania, Bulgaria, etc. Such naval monsters as England, Spain and Germany are also curtailing their shipbuilding programs. The navy has always been very expensive, but today it is almost fantastically expensive.
Therefore, each state today faces a choice - to create and maintain this expensive structure, or actually part with it, dealing with more pressing issues. Ultimately, everything rests on those geopolitical tasks that a given state is solving at a given historical moment and on the real economic power of a given state. Yes, and navies are created not anyhow, but also for 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 maritime economic zone - another, in operations on the inland seas - the third, in solving global problems in the vastness of the oceans - the fourth.
By the way, the Russian Navy has come a very difficult path in its development. Created by the will of Peter the Great, he subsequently survived all the inevitable childhood illnesses and in reality got on his feet only in the 70s-80s of the 18th century. But Russia simply had no other choice. The fleet was vitally necessary for her (due to its geographical location and those foreign policy tasks that Russia had and still has to solve), and the fleet is ocean-going and numerous.
Well, now let's get back to Ukraine. How pathetic the history of its Navy began in the early 90s! There were so many loud statements, pathos and speculations about Ukraine as a new great maritime power.
Only yesterday Ukraine was only one of the numerous republics of the USSR, and now, having become an independent power overnight, it immediately decided to acquire all state attributes, including the most prestigious of them - the navy. At the same time, no one 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 megalomania of the gentlemen 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 be a great sea power! But was Ukraine really ready to create and maintain a modern navy? What tasks in general should 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 as of yesterday and today is not only unnecessary for her, but even harmful. until the last days of its existence, it ate up most of the budget, without bringing any real benefit.
There is such a thing as a balanced fleet. This is a fleet in which all the constituent parts are thought out and verified: a certain number of specific warships built for solving specific combat missions corresponds to a specific number of auxiliary vessels that support these ships. A specific coastal infrastructure, a personnel training system is being created for these ships and vessels, the most complex technological chain of shipbuilding cooperation has been built, science is working and propaganda and educational work is being carried out among the population. In Ukraine, there was nothing of the kind in the bud. There were only exorbitant ambitions, stupid boast and nationalist frenzy.
If you look into the history of the birth, mournful life and sad death of the Ukrainian fleet, it becomes obvious that this unfortunate child was initially unviable, and therefore the whole history of the modern naval forces of Ukraine (Ukrainian Navy) is just a prolonged agony that lasted almost a quarter of a century. And therefore, with a pure heart, we can state today that the poor fellow has simply been tortured. It seems that with the death of the Ukrainian fleet they breathed a sigh of relief, first of all, in Kiev, because there is no fleet, there is no problem! It is possible that they still do not understand this there, and Ukrainian politicians are full of ambitions. But ambition is ambition, and reality is reality! And it, alas, is bleak for Kiev - an expensive experiment with the navy ended in a complete fiasco. However, it is common for our neighbors to step on their own rake again and again, and therefore I will not be surprised if soon, in the next nationalist frenzy, we are announced about new grandiose plans to create a great Ukrainian fleet. Well, we'll have a reason to laugh again …
Today, when crocodile tears are pouring on the Internet regarding the fact that the self-styled soldiers are being disarmed and escorted from the ships based in the 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 - with the armed seizure of the SKR-112 patrol ship by a group of conspirators and hijacking it to Odessa. By all international standards, it was a real pirate action with all the ensuing consequences. At the same time, the Ukrainian press inflated this piracy to the extent of a national feat. SKR-112 was declared the "Aurora" of the Ukrainian national revolution, and the criminal commander was declared a hero. Particularly zealous dreamed of calling the rebellious patrol ship "Ataman Sidor Bely" and even placing it on the Dnieper, like the same "Aurora", in order to demonstrate to descendants. None of this happened. Arriving in Odessa, the demoralized rebels staged a real bacchanalia on the ship and in a matter of days brought the patrol boat into complete disrepair. At the same time, they drank so violently that one of the officers died, choking on his own vomit. The failed "Sidor" itself was sold for scrap already in 1993, far from having served its service life. Here is such a heroic …
In principle, the entire history of the Ukrainian fleet is not at all a history of victories, as the Ukrainian nationalists would like, but a history of permanent betrayal. So it was in 1918, when, in order to avoid the capture of the fleet by German troops in Sevastopol, several pro-Ukrainian officers decided to raise the flags of the Berlin-allied regime of Hetman Skoropadsky on the ships, and then, when, literally a few weeks later, this danger disappeared, the yellow-blocking flags with such disappeared with ease. The Ukrainian fleet was also formed on the principles of betrayal in the 90s of the twentieth century. What is the attempt to pirate the submarine B-871, when the sailors, locked in the compartments, threatened to explode the submarine if the Ukrainian nationalist officers did not leave it.
And what about the attack on the night of April 10-11, 1994, by Ukrainian servicemen on the 318th battalion of reserve ships of the Black Sea Fleet, located in the Odessa port. Then the Ukrainian paratroopers in full armor broke into the base, beat the Russian sailors, looted, interrogated the warrant officers and officers with passion, and the base itself was taken into the Navy. And countless provocations in the military commandant's office of Sevastopol, seizures of ships in Nikolaev and coastal units - all these are real "feats" of Ukrainian military men. So it is not for Ukrainians to complain about "polite silent people."
However, nothing else could be expected from the sailors of the Naval Forces of Ukraine, since far from the best representatives of the officer's naval corps went to the Ukrainian fleet. The Naval Forces of Ukraine became the last refuge of losers who were striving to make a career on the wave of Ukrainian nationalism. A typical representative of this constellation is the current Minister of Defense of Ukraine, Admiral Tenyukh, who was decommissioned at one time from the ship's personnel for professional incompetence to the coastal base. However, the worthless officer was distinguished by the highest national consciousness and readiness to fight with Russia even now (then it was a prerequisite for admission to the Navy!), And therefore made a dizzying career. So what if he is stupid, but betrayed without flattery! And what about the Judas behavior of the first commander of the Ukrainian fleet, Rear Admiral Kozhin, who, in the evening having sworn allegiance to the oath of allegiance and the Black Sea Fleet to Admiral Kasatonov, the very next morning, as the notorious Mazepa deserted to another camp. Well, why not a hero of the Ukrainian nation! The next commander of the Naval Forces of Ukraine, Vice Admiral Beskorovainy, was no worse. Serving in the Northern Fleet, he considered that he had been undeservedly bypassed in his post there and immediately fled to Ukraine to satisfy his exorbitant ambitions. This is also a worthy example to follow, for where the pay is more, there we serve. The third leader of the Naval Forces of Ukraine, Admiral Yezhel, did not lag behind the older comrades. Now, as the ambassador of the Maidan in Belarus, he furiously calls for a crusade against Russia, which is quite natural - the admiral conscientiously fulfills 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 Hetman Sagaidachny. With the flight to Odessa, the Ukrainian Navy began its history and ended this story with the same flight. History tends to repeat itself, first as a tragedy, and then as a farce. At one time, the rebellion and the escape to Odessa of the Black Sea battleship Potemkin was a tragedy. Then everything was repeated in the form of a farce with the SKR-112 and now for the third time with the escape to the same Odessa of "Hetman Sagaidachny". The fate of "Potemkin" was, as you know, sad. The restless rebel ship, having wandered around the Black Sea for a week and received the nickname "wandering ship", then surrendered to the Romanian authorities. SKR-112 ingloriously rotted away at the pier and was sold for scrap. You don't have to be a visionary to understand that the fate of the "hetman" will be just as bleak.
In addition to ships and coastal infrastructure in the 90s, Ukraine also took over two naval schools, which it did not really need and did not need. Well, why, let’s say, was it a matter of taking away from Russia the Sevastopol Higher Naval Engineering School! After all, it trained engineers of nuclear power plants for nuclear submarines. And the Navy did not foresee nuclear-powered ships even in the distant future. But they took it all the same, partly out of greed, partly out of harm. Needless to say that SVVMIU soon ceased to exist, and VVMU them. P. S. Nakhimov dragged out the most miserable existence. Its graduates simply had nowhere to go, because the Ukrainian navy simply didn’t need so many graduates. Therefore, the poor fellows went to serve as traffic police inspectors and firefighters. Such is the Ukrainian naval romance!
However, as for senior officers, they were regularly trained in NATO educational institutions, where they were taught not only to fight according to Western standards, but also to hate Russia. Many leaders of the Naval Forces of Ukraine passed this school, including the current Minister of Defense of Ukraine. There was little sense in this, however. Ukrainian ships traditionally maneuvered illiterately, or even lost their speed at joint NATO exercises, turning into a laughing stock for "strategic partners."
Probably, few people know, but in Lvov in the early 90s, a whole group of specialists worked, composing a special Ukrainian naval language and translating the Ship Regulations and other documents into it. Of course, nothing good came of it either. And therefore, until the very last day, on the ships of the Navy, the commands were given in Russian, technical documentation was also kept in Russian, and the Ukrainian military men communicated among themselves on official issues more in Russian than in read language. Ukrainian command words were used mainly during inspections of Kiev chiefs.
For all the years of its vegetation, the Naval Forces of Ukraine did not become a real fleet either in terms of combat training, or in terms of morale, and not in accordance with traditions. Let's remember that if the anthem of Ukraine is just a copy of the anthem of Poland, then the flag of the Ukrainian naval forces is a copy of the navy of imperial Germany. Who does not believe, compare these flags. Alas, even in this Kiev did not create anything of its own, as they say, it lacked either intelligence or imagination.
I won't reveal a big secret if I notice that in Sevastopol, the sailors of the Ukrainian Navy, unlike Russian sailors, have always been unloved and even despised by the locals. How not to recall here the shameful provocation of the Ukrainian military men regarding the installation of a memorial plaque on the Grafskaya pier of Sevastopol! Then the whole city stood up against this Bandera action. The matter came to an open confrontation and criminal cases, but the Sevastopol residents achieved their goal, 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, the deserters-commanders and the contempt of the Sevastopol residents, as well as the feeling of their own inferiority, almost immediately gave rise to an inferiority complex among the Ukrainian sailors. Psychologists know that this complex manifests itself, first of all, in the creation of myths about one's own greatness. And here Ukraine is truly ahead of the rest of the world. What, for example, is the fact that having learned about the upcoming 300th anniversary of the Russian fleet in 1996 (in 1696 the Boyar Duma issued a decree that began with the words: "There will be a sea fleet …"), Lviv historians immediately announced that the fleet Ukraine is … 500 years old. True, at the same time, Western historians could not link the robber Cossack gangs with the regular fleet. But is this a problem when it is necessary to prove that we are the best and most ancient!
And how loudly they declared in Ukraine that the first submariners in the world were, of course, Ukrainian Cossacks, who allegedly turned over their seagull boats and, in such a “underwater form,” swam through the slabs of the Black Sea in fear of the Turks. In order to prove their priority in practice, the Ukrainian cadets of the former VVMU them. P. S. Nakhimov was ordered to conduct an experiment - turn one of the yawls upside down and swim like brave Cossack submariners. Alas, nothing good came of it. The overturned yal sank instantly, almost burying the unlucky submariners with it.
Isn't the funny story with the establishment of the Day of the Naval Forces of Ukraine a joke? The great day of the Naval Forces of Ukraine, the Ukrainian authorities have changed, probably, ten times. At first, they tried to celebrate their holiday in spite of Russia before our Navy Day, 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 visit you. And it was absolutely anecdotal that the Kiev rulers erected in Sevastopol a monument in honor of the Ukrainian fleet in the form of … a drunken dancing Zaporozhye Cossack. Until now, I have not been able to understand why exactly a drunken Cossack became the personification of the entire Ukrainian fleet? Maybe there is some great Ukrainian secret in this, which we are not given to understand! To the credit of the city authorities of Sevastopol, the creepy sculpture was still smart enough not to put it in the city center. She was hidden in the depths of one of the distant parks. We must pay tribute to the humor of the Sevastopol people, who today decided not to demolish the statues of the insane Cossack, but to leave it in memory of the short 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, the independent naval commanders did not know this truth. Therefore, in 1996, when the Black Sea Fleet was divided, they grabbed everything that could be grabbed, without thinking about whether it was necessary or not. For example, the Naval Forces of Ukraine gladly tidied up a part of the Black Sea Fleet's arsenal, without even bothering to figure out what, in fact, is stored in the "Ukrainianized" adits. The insight came later, when, having examined the coveted prey, the Ukrainian sailors were saddened - absolutely useless shells of long-sawed project 68-bis cruisers and battleships decommissioned back in the 50s of the twentieth century were stored in the adits. Calculating how much it will cost to utilize all this grabbed "wealth" immediately spoiled the mood of the Ukrainian military commanders for a long time.
As you know, during the division of the Black Sea Fleet, Ukraine foaming at the mouth demanded exactly half of the ship's personnel 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 possibilities of Ukraine. There was only one motto: grab as much as possible! In fact, everything turned out that almost all ships and auxiliary vessels transferred to Kiev were immediately sold to foreign firms, fighting for scrap, and auxiliary to private firms. And the proceeds were divided between statesmen and naval commanders. It would seem that they have sold and that's it, take it easy! But it was not there. For almost two decades from Kiev and Lvov, they heard statements about the imminent revival of the great Ukrainian fleet. Lvov theorists dreamed of an armada of landing ships that would land the marines on the "Ukrainian-owned" Kuban and "liberate" the local Cossacks from Russian tyranny.
Well, and the Kiev theorists, having long detached themselves from the realities of life, dreamed of ocean armadas. The product of these dreams was the development of the project 58250 corvette. The Ukrainian naval commanders intended to build 14 units of these "ships of the XXI century" in order to show their flag to the entire civilized world. But dreams are dreams, but realities are realities. Therefore, soon 14 corvettes turned into 12, then 10, then 6, 4 … Finally, it was announced that only one corvette would be built, but such that, seeing it with envy, admirals of the whole world would die! The name of the future corvette was given with the claim “Prince Volodymyr”. Alas, it soon became clear that the lonely "Volodymyr" is unlikely to ever go out to sea. Bravura reports about the planned construction progress quickly disappeared from the pages of the press, but there were reports of "some lack of funding", then there was generally silence. Alas, today we can say with confidence that if Ukraine is not able to maintain even the ships it has, then what can we say about the creation of new ones! Therefore, poor "Volodymyr", apparently, died in the womb of the shipyard, never seeing the sea. Eternal memory to him! However, one should not be particularly upset, because the newest nuclear-powered submarine missile cruiser of the new generation "Knyaz Vladimir" has already left the slipways on the stocks of the famous Sevmash. This "Vladimir" under the St. Andrew's flag is really destined to conquer the world ocean, inspiring respect and awe to our "strategic partners".
World naval history hardly knows such a wretched sight as the Ukrainian Navy was even in its heyday. What, for example, real combat missions could a squadron of the Ukrainian fleet perform when one listing of the types of ships that were part of it casts doubt on the mental normality of the Ukrainian naval commanders?
So, the flagship of the Ukrainian operetta armada is the Hetman Sagaidachny border patrol ship of the ocean zone, devoid of not only strike 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 only be an easy target, and at the same time a mass grave for his crew. The second miracle of the Ukrainian Navy is the control ship "Slavutich", which was built as a self-propelled base for unloading and neutralizing nuclear submarine reactors. In the Navy, he portrayed a command ship! Here comments are generally superfluous. Why the Ukrainians needed this useless structure defies any logic at all.
So many anecdotes have been told about the firstborn of the Ukrainian submarine fleet, the "pidvid boat" "Zaporizhzhya", that only their retelling will take several pages. We only note that during the endless repairs of this submarine, so much money was spent that they would have been enough to build several new submarines. As a result, the repaired Zaporizhzhya was only able to go out to sea once and, surrounded by all rescue forces, dive to periscope depth. The Ukrainian submariners simply did not dare to dive further. On this, in fact, all the combat activities of the Ukrainian submarine fleet ended.
In addition to this freak show, the Ukrainian fleet had three small anti-submarine ships, one of which was borderline and, therefore, also did not have any strike weapons and self-defense weapons. The landing force of the Naval Forces of Ukraine was represented by one large landing ship and one medium. There was, however, still once and the newest amphibious assault ship on an air cushion. But they ruined him out of drunkenness, and therefore quickly wrote off the pins and needles. In addition, there were a couple of old minesweepers and several boats. That's all the naval pride of Ukraine! In fact, Ukraine has not been able to create a real combat-ready fleet. The collection of random ships, in its absurdity and absurdity, looked more like a motley Cossack gang than a regular naval formation. By 2010, it became apparent that the days of this "sea goblin" were numbered. Every year fewer and fewer ships could not only solve any real problems, but even just go to sea. Every year more and more ships were written off for scrap metal. At the same time, Kiev politicians strainedly pretended that everything was fine with the Ukrainian Navy, and that the latter was already mortally ill, agonizingly agonizing. Therefore, even if Ukraine had not experienced any of today's political upheavals, all the same, in 5-8 years the Ukrainian Navy would have become a part of history.
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 represent the last chance for the Ukrainian Navy to survive. One by one, the Ukrainian ships lowered their prokayzer flags and raised the Andreevskie flags. The fact that out of twenty-two thousand Ukrainian servicemen who served in Crimea (and the lion's share of them were officers and sailors of the Naval Forces of Ukraine), only two thousand declared their desire to continue serving in Ukraine, was a blow to the Kiev authorities. Although this fact is a completely natural result of the entire history of the Ukrainian fleet.
What, for example, were the messages worth, as on the ships blocked by the forces of the Sevastopol self-defense, Ukrainian sailors proudly sang "Our proud" Varyag "does not surrender to the enemy and allegedly shouted:" The Russians are not surrendering! " Yes, the Russians do not actually surrender, since they serve their Russian Fatherland and the Russian flag, and the heroic "Varyag", as you know, has nothing to do with the ostentatious "bravery" of the Ukrainian military, since this is a song about a Russian ship under the Russian flag, but not about Ukrainian: "We did not lower the proud St. Andrew's flag in front of the enemy …" It is indicative, but the Ukrainian sailors did not find their own example to follow than the example of the Russian cruiser "Varyag". It is also significant that none of the Ukrainian sailors even thought to shout: "The Ukrainians are not surrendering!" And this is understandable, because it is the Ukrainians who give up and run from one camp to another everywhere and always. Today Ukrainian sailors do it quite well.
The bacilli of betrayal, which gave birth twenty-three years ago, the naval forces of Ukraine, in the end, and destroyed them. The already known Admiral Tenyukh was recently accused of treason by the deputy commander of the Ukrainian Marine Corps battalion on the air and demonstratively left the air. In response, Tenyukh just mumbled something. All this is quite natural …
Now in Odessa, the last of the Ukrainian ships "Hetman Sagaidachny", and several fragile boats, have found refuge for themselves. The fate of the remnants of the Naval Forces of Ukraine is so sad that I feel only pity for them. These scraps of the fleet are not needed today either by trade Odessa or Kiev, which is on the brink of an economic catastrophe. The circle has closed - the fleet, which began its history with treason and betrayal, self-destructed itself as a result of the same betrayal.
Once W. Churchill said a wise phrase: "It takes only three years to build a ship, to create a sea nation it takes three hundred years!" Alas, the Ukrainian naval experiment once again proved the correctness of these words. For twenty-three years of independence, Ukraine did not have either ships or a sea nation. That is why the trident, crowning the coat of arms of Ukraine, did not become the trident of the god of the seas, Neptune, and, apparently, never will. But we really shouldn't grieve over this!
