Navy’s Black Sea Integration
The Sevastopol-based Ukrainian Navy’s press service has quoted Rear- Admiral Ihor Kniaz, Officer Commander-in-Chief of the Ukrainian Navy, as saying that the development of relations between the navies of Ukraine and Romania is a guarantee of stability in the Black Sea region. Rear Admiral Kniaz said this after a one-day routine visit to the Romanian port of Braila, where he met Vice-Admiral Corneliu Rudencu, Chief of the Romanian Navy Staff.
According to Kniaz, “the meeting laid good groundwork for still closer relations between the navies of Romania and Ukraine.”
Both sides discussed further development of the Black Sea Naval Cooperation Task Group (BLACKSEAFOR), including changes in the group’s activation periods. Vice Admiral Rudencu and Rear Admiral Kniaz approved the proposal Turkey made in January at the meeting of Black Sea countries’ foreign ministers that BLACKSEAFOR be granted a permanent status in the Black Sea, patterned after NATO’s Standing Naval Force Mediterranean (STANAVFORMED) or NATO’s Standing Mine Countermeasures Force in the Mediterranean (MCMFORMED). Both sides supported the decision to divide BLACKSEAFOR’s next activation into two phases scheduled for August 2004 to April 2005.
Speaking of the further development of the Ukrainian Navy, Admiral Kniaz outlined the main directions of reform, such as transforming the Navy’s control facilities on the functional basis and properly distributing responsibilities and subordination levels, bringing the Navy’s structure and strength into line with their basic missions and the state’s economic capacity, disposing of and converting obsolete weapons and equipment, stage-by-stage discarding money-losing warships and auxiliary vessels, building new warships, and purchasing up-to-date naval armaments. In the opinion of the Ukrainian Navy’s commander-in-chief, it is multifunctional corvettes that will form the backbone of the navy. Also in the pipeline is the increasing share of light-duty vessels, such as missile boats, heavier funding of the construction of a series of modern highly effective mine-sweeping ships, and modernization of the naval air arm.
The naval chiefs of Ukraine and Romania agreed to meet again in late August or early September this year in the Ukrainian port of Reni.
Since 1995, the Ukrainian Navy has been involved in over 100 instances of international military cooperation, including the exercises Sea Breeze, Cooperative Partner, Cooperative Osprey, Black Sea Partnership, Breeze, et al., the Crimean News Agency reports.
The formation of the Black Sea Naval Cooperation Task Group (BLACKSEAFOR), a multinational naval large unit, has opened new prospects for the Ukrainian Navy. The program of sea exercises and training sessions included escorting a humanitarian convoy, piloting ships behind mine sweeps, rendering assistance to a distressed ship, providing anti-missile-boat and antisubmarine defense, rescuing people at sea, etc. On the whole, there were 53 exercises and six unofficial calls to the ports of Black Sea states. The Ukrainian Navy consists now of about forty warships, eighty auxiliary vessels, and sixty aircraft.
