US helping to rebuild Ukraine Navy after Russia captured most of it

 Washington Examiner:

The evacuation of Ukrainian ships from Crimea in March 2014 could not happen fast enough. In a political changeover that turned Ukraine away from Russia and toward the West, Russia seized the peninsula, and its Black Sea navy easily encircled Ukrainian ships, capturing 70% of the country's navy.

Seven years later, the U.S. is donating five P-190 Sloviansk class island patrol vessels and eight Mark VI patrol boats to a fledgling Ukrainian navy of no more than 30 ships. Ukraine is reconstituting its navy in order to patrol its coastlines and help counter Russia’s increased military presence in the Black Sea and the tiny Sea of Azov closed in by Crimea, Ukraine, and Russia. The 1936 Montreux Convention limits the presence of foreign navies in the Black Sea, meaning U.S. vessels must rotate out every two weeks to maintain a presence. But Black Sea nations can patrol as they wish.

“We lost Crimea temporarily, but we lost it,” Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba told the Washington Examiner in Kyiv. “We are heavily investing in basically the creation of a new Ukrainian navy.”

Such a navy could deter constant Russian harassment and the ever-present possibility that Russian ships could reach poorly defended Ukrainian shores.

Russia’s intentions are clear.

RUSSIA STIRS ETHNIC STRIFE IN UKRAINE IN HOPES OF TRIGGERING CIVIL WAR, FOREIGN MINISTER SAYS

A Russian coast guard vessel fired on three Ukrainian navy vessels on Nov. 25, 2018, attempting to pass from the Black Sea into the Sea of Azov through the Kerch Strait to access the Ukrainian port of Mariupol.

The incident was a sign that Russia intended to make the tiny sea a “Russian lake” and not shared international waters. The building of the Kerch Bridge by Russia from its mainland to the Crimean Peninsula limited Ukraine’s ability to receive container ships at one of its most important ports in Mariupol, in its industrial east.

...

Russian aggression is still well underway.  The Democrats' use of Ukraine as an excuse to impeach Trump was also a serious mistake. 

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