WASHINGTON – On Sunday, July 21, one of the hottest days on record in Washington, 34 sailors of Ukraine’s Military Naval Forces voted at the Embassy of Ukraine in Georgetown, and followed up with an excursion to Arlington National Cemetery. They were accompanied by the two military attachés from the Embassy, Col. Andriy Ordynovych and Naval Capt. Oleksandr Korneichuk.
The sailors are here for 10 weeks of training in Baltimore, learning how to operate the two Coast Guard cutters that the U.S. had donated to Ukraine’s Navy for patrolling Odesa’s coastal zone.
The two Ukrainian Coast Guard crews were selected because of their experience and availability. They will man and operate the two cutters, and are already in their fourth week of training. They are enjoying their stay in Baltimore and have enough free time for an occasional excursion to Washington and Baltimore.
All the crew members were required to take a three-month immersion course in English before their assignment to Baltimore. All the instrumentation and machinery on the cutters are in English, as is their instruction. This is a very rigorous training course, as each participant must take a series of proficiency exams in English before they can be certified in their respective areas of expertise. The group is led by Lt. Commander Ihor Trukhan.
The two commanders of the cutters are training with their crews. Lt. JG Pavlo Hladchenko is from Zhytomyr, and Lt. JG Damyr Aulin is from Kirovohrad. Both are married and are stationed in Odesa; they speak excellent Ukrainian and English.
The two Coast Guard crews visited some of the well-known sites at Arlington, including the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and the Iwo Jima Marine Memorial. They also visited the gravesites of two notable Ukrainian American warriors – Lt. Roman Kupchinsky and four-star Marine Gen. Samuel Jaskilka.
Kupchinsky was a decorated Vietnam veteran and became director of the Ukrainian section of Radio Liberty in Munich in 1991. He later moved to Kyiv as head of Radio Liberty.
Jaskilka retired as assistant commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps, and was a highly decorated veteran of World War II, the Korean War and Vietnam. Gen. Jaskilka was active in the Ukrainian American Veterans, and addressed their annual meeting at Soyuzivka in June 1977.
Each hero was saluted by the entire crew with a moment of silence and a hearty “Slava Ukrayini – Heroyam Slava.”
The Island-class U.S. Coast Guard cutters are 110 feet long and are lightly armed, with one 25mm deck gun and two .50-caliber machine guns. They can stay at sea for five days, with a range of 3,300 miles, and have a maximum speed of 30 knots (34 mph).
The two commanders agreed that both cutters, though built in 1988, are superior to any of the Ukrainian Coast Guard vessels they currently operate, in terms of maneuverability and reliability.
In 2014, the United States offered to give Ukraine two Island-class ships free of charge in an effort to rebuild Ukraine’s Navy. 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).
For some reason, the deal to transfer the vessels to Ukraine took four years to materialize, and the vessels were moored in Baltimore harbor for the past four years, awaiting a resolution.
Russia began ratcheting up its harassment of commercial vessels in the Azov Sea in April of 2018. Few people noticed that President Petro Poroshenko’s speech to the United Nations General Assembly on September 26, 2018, focused on the illegal actions of Russia in the Sea of Azov – two months before the assault on Ukraine’s naval vessels in the Kerch Strait.
The following day, September 27, 2018, then-President Poroshenko visited Baltimore and toured the two vessels with Admiral Ihor Voronchenko. Ukraine finally signed the agreement for refurbishing the vessels and training of the two crews needed to man the vessels.
Though the Coast Guard cutters were donated to Ukraine, they needed refurbishment and the crew needed training. Under the agreement, Ukraine paid $9.8 million for the renovation and upgrading of the main computer and guidance systems, as well as living quarters, engine and armaments.
Lt. Commander Ihor Trukhan
Ukrainian crews in training at U.S. Coast Guard facility in Baltimore.
According to an investigation by RFE/RL, as cited by Valeriya Yegoshyna in an April 25, 2018, article for the Atlantic Council, the reason it took so long to finalize the deal that was initiated in 2014 was that it was embroiled in potential corruption. Correspondence about the fate of the cutters between the relevant authorities in Ukraine and the United States, obtained by RFE/RL, revealed that discussions had gone on for several years without resolution.
Ms. Yegoshyna wrote that “ one of the main obstacles is that the U.S. side insists on a direct contract between Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense and the U.S. Coast Guard. Ukrainian law gives this right only to the state giant Ukroboronprom.”
According to the Atlantic Council article, it turns out that former President Petro Poroshenko owned a major shipyard with a contract to build equivalent Coast Guard patrol boats. Apparently, there was not enough funding in the Ministry of Defense budget to accomplish both aims – delivery of the U.S. donated cutters, which needed $10 million for refurbishment and training, along with the approximately $30 million for Mr. Poroshenko’s shipyard order of comparable cutters.
It took the looming Kerch crisis of November 28, 2018, and the approaching presidential elections, to finally break the logjam
The military attachés at the Ukrainian Embassy are preparing a series of additional events involving the crew that will be hosted by the Ukrainian community in Baltimore and Washington during the remaining weeks of training.
The crew will be returning to its home base in Odesa on September 15, and the cutters are expected to be delivered approximately one month later.