On April 3, as North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) foreign ministers gathered in Washington, DC to mark the alliance’s , the Russian state media shared a report claiming NATO support for the Ukrainian navy was “laughable” and the ships provided to Ukraine by NATO states are nothing but “junk.”
These claims, attributed to Andrei Koshkin, head of the political science and sociology department at the prestigious Plekhanov Academy, were broadcast on Sputnik radio and then republished by several other government media outlets, including .
According to RIA Novosti, Koshkin was asked to comment on that day’s announcement by , head of NATO representative office in Ukraine, who said the Ukrainian navy will be training with the NATO ships to the Black Sea ports controlled by Kyiv.
Koshkin said it was “laughable” to try and train the Ukrainian navy on the NATO ships while they are located in Ukrainian ports, and that no training can substitute for a real service on military ships – experience that Ukraine does not have.
He also claimed the military vessels NATO states are offering to Kyiv are “in essence, junk.”
Koshkin’s claims are false.
The claim that the situation with Ukraine’s navy is “extremely difficult,” is no longer true, the co-founder of the Military in UA web portal, Olexandr Argat, told Polygraph.info.
“Ukraine has built nine vessels for the navy during the last five years: seven of them are Gurza-M class boats and the other two are Centaur-class. These are small ships but they are our own and new,” Argat said.
are small armored artillery boats used to patrol harbors, rivers, lakes, territorial waters and isolated areas. Other missions include protection of Ukraine’s borders and river ports, assistance to aircraft or vessels in distress, and combating illegal migration, piracy and smuggling on the Danube River and in the waters of the Black Sea-Azov basin.
are used to provide fire support and ensure the rapid deployment of marines and Special Forces. They can also perform a wide range of missions, including maritime patrol, surveillance, search-and-rescue (SAR), safeguarding littoral and inland waters, and troop transport.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg s last December that “NATO is helping with different trust funds on cyber, on command and control and we also help to modernize the Ukrainian navy," including by providing intense training to the Ukrainian navy.
NATO support for Ukraine is regulated under the of September 2014, which was followed by four declarations ensuring and NATO support for Ukraine.
NATO members, including the United States, United Kingdom and others, have with , including from the Ukrainian navy.
According to the , from July to September 2018], the U.S. Marine Corps “kicked off three training evolutions with partner forces in Ukraine, Romania, and Georgia.”
Interactive shows the activities of the NATO and Ukrainian navy, including the joint NATO-Ukraine drill: Matka-class missile boat "Pryluky" (U153) and Halifax-class frigate HMCS Toronto (FFH 333) held in July 2018.
In September 2018, Ukraine’s navy reportedly joint training with the .
“NATO does not provide ships to Ukraine,” the alliance’s press office told Polygraph.info, noting that NATO member states are independently providing vessels to the Ukrainian navy.
In 2017, Ukrainian Vice Admiral Ihor Voronchenko that Ukraine’s navy is looking into the purchase of decommissioned NATO ships for its fleet in order to fulfill Ukraine’s role in occupying a significant portion of the Black Sea coastline.
Denmark, Lithuania, Poland, Tanzania and the United States have sold or rebuilt -- or are in the process of negotiating the delivery of -- to Kyiv.
John Herbst, director of the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center and former U.S. Ambassador to Uzbekistan (2000-2003) and to Ukraine (2003-2006), told Polygraph.info, Koshkin’s statement is “propaganda.”
”The ships that we have been able to provide to Ukraine are coast guard cutters; they are real ships, not junk, they will be of serious use to Ukraine’s navy. So, these statements are simply false,” Herbst said.
Herbst said that Moscow’s claim of ownership over parts of the Black Sea, including the Kerch Strait, are “in complete violation of international law.” Russia is only one of the Black Sea powers, which also include several NATO nations, Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey, all of which have navies.