Admiral Ihor Voronchenko, commander of Ukraine’s Navy and coastal defenses, came to Washington two weeks ago to round up support for Ukraine’s naval hardware needs and to explain Ukraine’s side of the Kerch crisis. The Kerch crisis has placed Ukraine in a difficult quandary: it does not have the naval forces to directly challenge Russia’s control of the Kerch Strait, and it will take decades for Ukraine to bolster its naval capabilities, according to the strategy that Admiral Voronchenko laid out in a recent document titled “Strategy for Naval Military Forces and the Armed Forces of Ukraine – 2035.”
For the time being, diplomatic efforts and sanctions against Russia are all that are available. So far, the results have been marginal, at best, for Ukraine’s sailors are still held captive in Moscow, and Russia continues to illegally restrict commercial navigation through the Kerch Strait.
Ukraine’s Navy, depleted after the mass defections during the Crimean invasion in 2014, is no match for the Russian naval and land-based military forces with their combined firepower. This begs the questions of what type of tangible military hardware support is most helpful for Ukraine in the present circumstances, and how support for additional future naval equipment and military hardware that has been offered by the U.S., will help Ukraine to secure its maritime sovereignty?
The crisis in the Kerch Strait was yet another test by Vladimir Putin to determine just how far the U.S. and NATO are willing to restrict Russia’s strategy of expansion. Russia began ratcheting up its harassment of commercial vessels in the Azov Sea in April 2018. Few people noticed that President Petro Poroshenko’s speech to the U.N. General Assembly on September 26, 2018, focused on the recent illegal actions of Russia in the Sea of Azov – two months before the assault on Ukraine’s naval vessels.
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A Ukrainian corvette.
In his speech, Mr. Poroshenko noted: “The Kremlin has no intention to stop. After the occupation of Crimea, it aims now at occupation of the Sea of Azov between Ukraine and Russia. Having illegally constructed a bridge across the Kerch Strait, Russia launched a systematic disruption of freedom of international navigation through the Kerch Strait for Ukrainian and foreign ships.”
Indeed, Russia’s strategy seems to be a carbon copy of China’s naval strategy in the South China Sea, seeking to make the Sea of Azov its exclusive territorial sea. But to what purpose? Russia has systematically been turning the screws on commercial navigation in the Sea of Azov, by obstructing merchant vessels to and from Ukraine’s key ports of Mariupol and Berdyansk, through the Kerch Strait. The purpose is to further strangle Ukraine’s export economy.
Between April and October of 2018, merchant vessels of over 25 nations have been subjected to Russia’s illegal and intrusive inspection procedures. Vessels have been delayed for days, and some have been blocked at the Kerch Bridge, where a large oil supertanker is positioned under the bridge to block passage through the straits. Yet, there has been no notable condemnation of these actions in the United Nations from those nations.
These harassment tactics incur great costs to the private owners of the vessels, estimated at more than $10 million in operating expenses. Most troubling is that a significant proportion of Ukraine’s exports and imports go through the ports of Berdyansk and Mariupol: steel, iron ore, coal and grain shipments. The economic and trade losses to Ukraine could escalate to billions of dollars were a total blockade to be successfully conducted by Russia.
This is a recipe for an economic disaster for Ukraine, which is already severely hobbled by the economic losses of oil and gas revenues from Crimea, and the diminished industrial output of the Donbas region. That is the ultimate aim of Russia: destabilizing the economy of Ukraine to the point of national bankruptcy and creating internal political instability which discourages further foreign investment.
Simultaneously, there has been an enormous build-up of Russia’s naval fleet in the Azov Sea, including coast guard assets, special forces and air force strike capability. In recent briefings in Washington, Admiral Voronchenko estimated that there are close to 120 Russian warships and smaller coastal vessels in the Azov Sea arrayed against a handful of Ukrainian gunboats and small coastal patrol vessels.
Ukraine has laid out its long-term strategy to upgrade its naval defense stretching out to beyond 2035. But that does not address immediate needs. The first phase of the strategy would focus on protecting its territorial coastal waters (under 12 nautical miles); second phase, protecting its Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ; under 200 nautical miles) and finally, the “blue waters” of the Black Sea.
Each phase requires different types of equipment (e.g., radar systems); vessels (gunboats, frigates, patrol boats) and weapons (surface-to-air missiles launched from ships, etc.), as well as manpower recruitment, training, joint maneuvers with NATO, interoperability of complex command and control systems with other NATO partners, etc.
The fundamental question is: What is needed now, in the midst of the crisis, and in the near-term to help thwart Russia’s provocations at sea? Clearly, Ukraine is in no position to put up a fight against an opponent that has superior advantages in all respects. So, the immediate solutions depend exclusively on a focused and unified Western response, diplomatic efforts at the U.N., NATO and bilateral entreaties, as well as a coordinated system of punitive sanctions.
Ukraine is the only country actively resisting Russia’s multi-faceted aggressions – and it is paying dearly for such resistance in terms of lives, severe economic repercussions and political instability at home. In my discussion with Admiral Voronchenko, he told me that “Ukraine is not only protecting itself, it is now protecting the Western world.”
wearethemighty.com
What Ukraine needs: a Cyclone Class patrol boat.
Europe and the West understand that if Ukraine falls, there will likely be a domino effect that will severely test NATO’s shaky alliance and the European Union’s resolve. The issue is whether the battle is fought, with Ukraine as a proxy for the EU and NATO, or whether they will have to deal with a much more complicated mess afterwards. Unfortunately, the three principal leaders of the EU, France, Germany and the United Kingdom are preoccupied with their own serious political problems at home, and are not inclined to step up in defense of Ukraine’s interests. The U.S. alone has stood up as Ukraine’s principal supporter with arms and military support.
NATO has pledged “support” for Ukraine, with Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg saying on December 13, 2018, that “Russia must immediately release the sailors and ships they seized, and allow freedom of navigation including free access to Ukrainian ports in the Sea of Azov.”
What Ukraine needs is tangible support, in the form of military hardware and software: new radar systems, naval patrol boats, swift gunboats, surface-to-air missiles and other military hardware that serve as a starting point in fulfilling Phase 1 of Admiral Voronchenko’s stated naval defense strategy. The question is: Who will aid Ukraine’s critical defense needs?
President Poroshenko, has called on NATO to deploy naval ships to the Azov Sea to “provide security” amid a deepening crisis with Russia. On December 5, 2018, the United States declared that it was “preparing to send a warship into the Black Sea” in response to Russian seizure of Ukrainian vessels and sailors. The Pentagon has asked the State Department to inform the Turkish government of its plan to possibly send a warship into those disputed waters, because Turkey controls the passage of warships through the Bosphorus Strait.
There is considerable support in the U.S. Senate. Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) called for tougher sanctions, additional NATO exercises in the Black Sea and more U.S. security aid to Ukraine, “including lethal maritime equipment and weapons.” All these factors will play out very slowly and in different ways in the next Congress, while Mr. Putin continues to tighten the screws in the Azov Sea and wreak havoc with Ukraine’s vitally important maritime economy.
Aside from multiple but inherently tepid diplomatic efforts, what is to be done in the near-term? The sale of warships to Ukraine will not help now. But Ukraine’s naval strategy and longer term security needs, as well as Europe’s security interests, require that this part of the overall defense strategy be initiated as soon as possible. The Black Sea is likely to become a major region of contention among the powers of that region – Russia, Turkey and Ukraine.
Alliances are shifting rapidly, and Turkey, Russia and Iran met in Teheran in September 2018 to discuss a joint Middle East strategy to thwart Western interests in that region. This alliance will likely affect future actions in the Black Sea as well. Only Ukraine and its naval capabilities will stand between this alliance and Europe.
Russia and Turkey are both seeking control of the region for their own purposes, and Turkey has control of the Bosphorus and Dardanelles, under the 1936 Convention of Montreux. Under this treaty, Turkey controls the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles straits and regulates the passage of warships between the Black and Mediterranean seas. The convention states that the main objective in peacetime is to maintain freedom of passage of commercial vessels through the Bosphorus. However, Turkey has the legal power to control access of NATO forces and naval vessels into the Black Sea.
Perhaps the most useful armaments for the present circumstances would be highly mobile land to sea/ship, over-the-horizon missiles, with a range of 100 miles. These missiles can be fired from a standard Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System (GMLRS), which is used by both the U.S. Marines and the Army. The cost of each missile is about $100,000 to $200,000.
From a U.S. naval strategic perspective, providing Ukraine with expensive vessels – gunboats and frigates – will require years of very expensive refurbishment to make them combat-worthy at the level of Russia’s fleet – costs that the U.S. Navy itself thought were way too high for its current seven mothballed Perry-class frigates that are under consideration for transfer to Ukraine’s Navy.
If the U.S. does not think such expenses are cost-effective, how can Ukraine afford such costs? The Perry-class frigates are slightly larger than Ukraine’s own single frigate, the Hetman Sahaidachny. But, transfer of these vessels is wholly unrealistic, at this time, mainly because of the high refurbishment and operating costs. According to my sources at Ukraine’s naval staff, Ukraine has a total annual budget for operations and maintenance of about $40 million for its entire fleet. The operating expenses of a single frigate are close to $25 million per year.
Instead, according to the 2035 strategy, Ukraine’s Navy has sensibly opted for a small fleet of four corvettes. Whereas, a frigate is listed at about 4,200 tons and is 408 feet long (135 meters), a corvette is 2,500 tons, with a length of 330-370 feet (110 to 112 meters). A corvette is the smallest class of vessel considered to be a proper warship. It is highly maneuverable, with top speeds of over 35 mph (over 55 kilometers per hour).
Unfortunately, the problem confronting Ukraine’s Navy is that construction of this class of vessels has been entangled in budget deficits, resulting in much-delayed delivery schedules of these Ukrainian-designed corvettes. Construction has stopped. Worse, corruption and sabotage have played a major role as well. The shipyard is owned by a pro-Russian oligarch, Vadim Novinsky, who is under investigation for a series of financial crimes, including orchestrating a series of delays at his shipyard.
Another persistent problem has been one of bureaucratic red tape at every step. There have been many difficulties in transferring even small coastal patrol vessels of the type that the U.S. Coast Guard uses. In 2015 Ukraine and the U.S. signed an agreement to transfer two small Island-class cutters to Ukraine as part of its non-paid aid under the Excess Defense Article Program (EDAP).
During an official ceremony on September 27, 2018, in Baltimore, Admiral Voronchenko and U.S. Coast Guard Vice-Admiral Michael F. McAllister finally signed handing-over certificates, paving the way for the transporting of the vessels to Ukraine. As of today, both vessels are still moored in Baltimore harbor.
Just for perspective, the Island-class Coast Guard cutters are relatively small – 168 tons and 110 feet long (34 meters). They would cost nearly $10 million for Ukraine to refurbish and become seaworthy for the trip across the Atlantic.
There is an intermediate size gunboat that would be ideal for Admiral Voronchenko’s mosquito fleet of swift and maneuverable attack boats with firepower. What Ukraine really needs are the Cyclone-class patrol ships that are widely used by the U.S. Navy in the Persian Gulf region.
They are 170 feet long (54 meters) and are very fast at 35 knots (40 miles per hour) and carry a lot of firepower. The primary mission of these ships is coastal patrol and interdiction surveillance – an important aspect of littoral operations outlined in Admiral Voronchenko’s first and second phases of coastal and littoral (EEZ) zone protection strategy.
Washington’s think tank critics and some Department of Defense skeptics say that providing Ukraine with naval vessels and equipment will simply provoke Russia further, and will not be helpful in any of the numerous diplomatic efforts now taking place. There are many malign geostrategic influences under way in this Black Sea region that actually call for more Western support to Ukraine, which has been a proven bulwark against Russia’s expansionist aims.
The West needs to view Ukraine’s willingness to stand up to Russia and its potential military capabilities as part of a longer-term, multi-decadal strategy of engagement. Admiral Voronchenko’s three-phase strategy, projecting out to 2035, represents an excellent starting point for consideration, and the West needs to begin beefing up Ukraine’s naval forces, both for the current crises and for the inevitable geostrategic long game that is emerging and should be obvious to anyone with common sense.