Ukraine’s Navy Modernization: Challenges and Prospects (originally published on 21 February 2013 in OE Watch )

           According to its defense doctrine, the main purpose of the Ukrainian Navy is to be able to restrain, identify, and neutralize military conflicts, as well as to defend the country against military aggression on the sea, either on its own or in cooperation with other Ukrainian military forces. Questions have risen, however, whether the current state of the Ukrainian Navy is sufficient to perform this primary mission. As the excerpt from the adjacent article reveals, Ukraine’s Navy is suffering from many systemic problems that are not likely to be overcome in the near future. 

Officially, the Ukrainian Navy possesses 25 combat ships and corvettes, more than 50 service ships, and about 30 naval aircraft. Most are old Soviet vessels whose seaworthiness is questionable.  Only three of these ships are less than 20 years old, and the remainder are in urgent need of modernization.  The article refers to an embarrassing incident when the Ukrainian ship “Kakhovka” failed to block the Russian ship “Mirazh” after the former broke down during the armed conflict between Russia and Georgia in 2008.

         In an attempt to change the situation, in 2012 the Ukrainian government allocated 170 million hryvnya ($21 million) for repairing 20 military and technical ships. The objective was to have ten ships fully capable of performing defensive military operations in the Black Sea region, as opposed to maintaining a large but ineffective fleet.  However, merely repairing and modernizing the remaining fleet will have little impact if training and operations are neglected.  As the excerpt points out, the few serviceable vessels in the naval inventory have deployed for but brief periods during the past couple of years.   

         Most security experts on the Black Sea region are generally skeptical of the immediate prospects for modernizing the Ukrainian Navy.  There are a number of contributing factors, to include a weak economy, corruption, poor planning, and domestic political instability. At the same time, however, there is some positive evidence.  Along with the above-mentioned decision to focus on modernizing the newer ships, the navy has started regular patrol missions in the Black Sea.  Ukraine is planning to finalize the restoration of the main core of its fleet by mid-Spring 2013, which would allow an increase in the number of ships participating in Black Sea patrols. Therefore, despite serious financial constraints, with sufficient political will the Ukrainian Navy could begin partial modernization.