PORTSMOUTH, United Kingdom -- Crews from two Ukrainian Navy minehunting vessels are training with the Royal Navy in Britain in preparation of a future mission to clear explosives from the Black Sea.
They would likely be deployed only once a cease-fire between Russia and Ukraine genuinely takes hold.
RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service correspondent Roman Pahulych visited the crews in Portsmouth as they held drills to detect and neutral floating mines.
After Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, both countries placed hundreds of mines throughout the Black Sea, mostly to deter coastal attacks. Those explosive now pose a threat to commercial shipping.
"Civilian shipping is one of the largest sectors of the Ukrainian economy," said the captain of the Cherkasy. " If there is a mine threat, civilian ships will not go to ports and there would be no influx of foreign currency."
The threat to commercial shipping was made evident last December when a Panama-flagged cargo ship headed to a Danube port to load grain hit a Russian mine in the Black Sea.
In November, Ukrainian Navy spokesman Dmytro Pletenchuk estimated it could take up to five years to clear approximately 400 mines in the Black Sea.
The two Ukrainian Navy minehunting vessels had belonged to Britain's Royal Navy before being transferred to Ukraine. The ships were renamed the Chernihiv and the Cherkasy in tribute to vessels Ukraine lost to Russia when it illegally annexed the Crimean Peninsula in 2014.
