Your questions answered: Why hasn’t the West provided Ukraine with navy ships to challenge Russia’s dominance?
With a second front opening in the war and Russia claiming control of several settlements, it’s been an important week for the war in Ukraine.Readers have been sending in their questions to our senior correspondents and military experts for their take on the changing battlefield environment.Today, Lamas asked:Given the impressive success of Ukraine to contain the operational degrees of freedom of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, why hasn’t the West supplied the Ukrainian navy with ships in order to consolidate its dominance and pose a serious new challenge to the Russian army?Military analyst Sean Bell had this to say…Thank you for this interesting question.At the start of the Russian ground offensive the Ukrainians scuttled their remaining naval warships to stop them falling into the hands of the Russia invaders. However, since then the Ukrainians have proven very effective at using naval drones to target Russian Black Sea Fleet (BSF) vessels, forcing the remainder of the Russian naval forces to move east for their own protection.This Ukrainian operational success has limited Russia’s ability to conduct an amphibious assault against the Ukrainian port of Odessa, and has also provided vital freedom of movement on the western edge of the Black Sea to enable Ukraine to continue exporting its grain and provide vital revenues to help fund its war effort.Late last year the UK Ministry of Defence announced that two Royal Navy minehunter ships were to be transferred from the Royal Navy to the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) in a move to strengthen Ukraine’s ability to operate at sea. As the UK and Norway launched a new Maritime Capability Coalition, Defence Secretary Grant Shapps announced the procurement of two Sandown Class mine countermeasures vessels (MCMVs) by Ukraine through UK export finance.Strengthening the Ukraine’s maritime capabilities, in particular countering the threat from Russian sea mines, was expected to help restore Ukraine’s maritime exports.However, the only maritime access route into the Black Sea is through the Bosphorus straits, and that is controlled by Turkey. Under the terms of the Montreux Convention of 1936 – which is still in place – the straits are treated as an international shipping lane, except that Turkey has the power to restrict warships’ access to the Black Sea. This restriction applies to warships from any country, whether or not they border the Black Sea, following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. As a result, although the UK was prepared to bolster Ukraine’s maritime capability in the near term, the Maritime Capability Coalition will be primarily focused on helping Ukraine rebuild its military maritime capability once the current hostilities have ended. The international community retains the ability to donate maritime capabilities that are land (or air) transportable, but for now that will not include the UK Naval Minehunters that can only be delivered once access to the Black Sea is re-opened.
