INTERVIEW: Naval officer offers observations on fleet's recent history and current status
by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau
Anatolii Danilov's first book, "The Ukrainian Flotilla: Near the Well of Rebirth," documents the events that occurred in Sevastopol and the Black Sea Fleet just before and after the declaration of Ukraine's independence.
Capt. 1st Class Danilov, who was responsible for the formation of the first Ukrainian Navy Television and Radio Center in Sevastopol in the early 1990s, chronicles the political intrigue and the social climate in Kyiv and Sevastopol during those days and months. Today Capt. Danilov is assistant director of the Nakhimov Naval Institute of Sevastopol.
The book, written in the Ukrainian language, is the first tome of a history of the Ukrainian navy that Capt. Danilov is preparing. The second tome is due out in time for the jubilee celebrations of Ukrainian independence in August.
The following edited interview (the first part of which was published last week) was conducted in Kyiv in mid-February.
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Q: Do you believe there are perspectives for future cooperation between the Ukrainian navy and the Black Sea Fleet?
A: Basically, there is a future. When I am with the students, the future officers of Ukraine, I tell them: "We are citizens of Ukraine, we have our laws, we have our territory, our Constitution, we have our military oath, and we must understand what this means."
But on the question of maintaining good relations, my God, of course, we should. Whether it is with Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania or with the U.S., with whom I must say we have excellent relations. I have spent time with the U.S.S. LaSalle of the U.S. 6th Fleet in the Mediterranean Sea, with the officers, their wives and girls, with students. This is not a state secret, and I willingly tell many people, including my students at the institute, that we have great relations with the U.S. Navy.
When we have held joint exercises, either with the U.S. fleet, or the Turks, the Bulgarians, the Italians, certain patriotic forces [in Sevastopol] have demonstrated with slogans like "NATO get out!" and similar things.
What I would like to say here is that relations with Russia or some other country should not be different than normal relations with any country. I want to underscore this. We are a normal civilized country that shows respect and expects that we should receive respect in turn.
Q: What is the current situation of the Ukrainian navy? Is it adequately financed? Are its needs being met?
A: Its authority is growing. However, there has been a declining amount of production of new vessels lately. This is not normal. Last year on August 1, on the deck of the frigate Hetman Sahaidachny, President Leonid Kuchma said questions regarding the completion of construction of the missile cruiser Ukraina must be resolved.
Yesterday I had discussions with leading figures of the government. About 95 percent of the ship is complete. It needs about another 10 million hrv for completion. I think the government will find the financing. It has been under construction for more than 10 years now, since Soviet times. When they asked me if we need the ship, I said, yes, of course. Let's not forget it carries the name Ukraina.
And, of course, we hope that a decision will be made on the submarine Zaporizhia, which is currently docked in Balaklava. All it needs is batteries - an investment of several million dollars. That issue also has dragged on. We thought that Russia would provide help, now it looks like perhaps Germany may do so. We need to resolve this matter.
I think that if President Kuchma achieves what he proposed while on the Sahaidachny last August, that the Ukrainian navy must have a separate line item in the national budget, it would benefit not only the seafaring forces but also the country as a whole.
Q: How is the Nakhimov Naval Institute of Sevastopol doing? Does it have a full complement of cadets?
A: I have been the assistant director of the institute for seven years now, and I want to tell you honestly that with each year the quality of the educational process and the level of military discipline increases.
Let me give you an example that is not among the fondest of my memories. The learning process is, above all, a matter of discipline: how an individual carries himself, how he carries out his duties, etc. In 1994 there were more than 90 criminal acts in the institute, but in 2000 there was only one, for practical purposes. And I say for practical purposes because the navy procurator filed no complaints last year, but we at the institute determined one criminal matter.
Today we have about 1,000 cadets. Recently, state quotas have shrunk slightly for cadets as future officers. This is because all the structures [of the Ukrainian navy], today are working more efficiently. No longer are we simply gathering cadres to feed and train them, only to be unable to place them. We no longer are telling graduates, "Congratulations, here's your diploma - and now go out onto the street in search for a job!" Now we have a better idea of our needs.
Last year a navy college began to function at the institute, which is the warrant officer level of naval personnel, the right hand of the officer, who will study for two years, eight months. The courses have been extended for eight months from what was offered during Soviet times to make room for new technologies, computer training, international relations study and language training.
Q: Do you mean Ukrainian language training?
A: As embarrassing as it is for me to talk about the need to learn the Ukrainian language, it is only common sense. But here we are talking about foreign language training, and especially the English language. The fleet travels the world, and the most common language used is the English language.
Our institution is in pretty good shape physically, although some remodeling still needs to be done. We have a sound pedagogical-teaching foundation with more than 100 academics. This number is constantly rising.
The Ministry of Defense has shown much support for our efforts. Minister of Defense Oleksander Kuzmuk has paid four visits to the institute. What institute can say that it has been visited four times by the minister?
He has set a goal for us: that within two to three years - sometime between 2002 and 2003 - we become a naval academy. As you can well imagine, this is a serious undertaking. This means a level four of accreditation of all our departments, and we have more than 20. Currently we have several departments with level four accreditation. This involves increasing further the number of academicians, guaranteeing the number of personal computers, raising the material and social resources.
It also means that increasingly we will be hosting foreign students. Already there are plans for Chinese students. We have had Pakistani students. About 50 Greek cadets recently took special courses here, among them officers. As you have read in the press, Greece has bought Ukrainian-made vessels and there were training courses. You can say that Ukraine is slowly becoming a naval incubator.
Q: Is Ukrainian the teaching language of the institute?
A: Unfortunately not all [instructors] do so. But even here there have been improvements. There is the Ukrainian language department. There are other departments where many of the instructors now teach in the state language.
But I have to say that the psychological situation of Sevastopol - 75 percent of the residents are Russian - exerts pressure. Our boys, our cadets from western Ukraine, from the Khmelnytskyi and Chernivtsi oblasts, even they become entrapped by the omnipresence of the Russian language. When I confront them with, "Why are you giving in, I have pinned my hopes on you," they reply, "Well, you know, this is Sevastopol."
This may sound like sloganeering, but it is true that to live in a society and remain removed from it is very difficult.
On the grounds of the territory of the institute we try to encourage them to speak the state language - of course we can't force them to. But outside the grounds I would say that 100 percent, or nearly 100 percent of them, speak Russian.
As for my own family, my wife speaks Ukrainian, as does my oldest daughter. But my younger daughter speaks it more poorly because in the schools [of Sevastopol] they don't teach it at all. They teach German, English, but they don't teach Ukrainian, the state language. We already have approached the city council on this matter.
But I am nevertheless convinced that gradually, even if slowly, and perhaps not as quickly as some would like, positive changes are taking place. This goes without saying.
Q: And the last question, what provoked you to write your book, "The Ukrainian Fleet: Near the Well of Rebirth?"
A: There is a whole complex of reasons that I decided to write the book. When I was under the command of Vice-Admiral Borys Kozhyn, today a national deputy and the director of the Union of Officers of Ukraine, who is my military brother and friend, I never thought about writing a book. It was a time of great stress, psychological conflicts and so on.
But the years moved on, the situation changed, destiny threw me around to various posts. At some point I thought, "What a complicated time. So much is going on." Whether I wanted to or not, I found myself at the epicenter of these events. If I don't document this, explain how it all occurred and how we worked, then others will try to do so. I am convinced they can't offer a more objective version. One needed to have been steeped in that environment.
I am not the first to write on this theme. There are two other books out, but I found them not to be objective, they were written to please a certain audience. I am not going to say whether it was a country or some certain element of Ukrainian society. These were the reasons. As I returned via train to Sevastopol in April 1994 [to take up the post of second in command at the institute] the plan for the book developed.
I must tell you it was very difficult to put this book together. It was not just collecting the information that was difficult. I had to find all the financing myself. The diaspora, specifically in the United States - Vasyl Mackiw, who lives in Florida, and the Ukrainian Social Services organizations in the U.S. and Canada - greatly helped.
I never realized that everything wouldn't fit into one book. Only when I began writing did I come to understand I wouldn't be writing simply about the dry facts but about the leading heroes: the officers, the warrant officers, the sailors and the civilians; the patriots who maintained a determined position on the need to deepen Ukrainian national identity in the Crimea and Sevastopol; about the fight to create the Ukrainian navy, and so on.
So there will be another book. The first book encompasses the time period between the first half of 1989 through to the first half of 1992. This period includes the formation of patriotic organizations in Sevastopol such as the Prosvita Language Society, National Rukh of Ukraine, Ukrainian Republican Party, Union of Ukrainian Officers, Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists, Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, in Ukraine as well as in Sevastopol, of course.
During that time the leadership of the Black Sea Fleet used all means at its disposal to pressure [officers], to remove them from their posts and discredit them. It was terrible.
The book begins in a very traditional way, with the send-off of a vessel from Donuzlav on July 21, 1992, and the first entry into the ship's log and ends with the arrival at Odesa and an entry that reads: "We are maintaining a steady course."
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For information on how to obtain a copy of the book please send an inquiry to: Ukraine, Kyiv 01001, Budynok Ofitsera, vul. Hrushevskoho 30/1, 3-ii poverkh, Spilka Ofitseriv Ukrainy, Voitovych Yevhen Maksym.
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Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, March 25, 2001, No. 12, Vol. LXIX
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