The Ukrainian leadership is to blame for the fact that Russia resorted to forceful actions in the Kerch Strait.
Oleg Zhdanov, a retired colonel and former officer of the operational directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, stated this on TV channel 112, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
According to Zhdanov, the Ukrainian leadership in vain risked the crew and the ships themselves, knowing in advance that their passage through the Kerch Strait was impossible.
“We need to ask the question who gave the command for this transition. Didn’t you understand that simple armored boats, river armored boats are against the Russian Black Sea Fleet? We ourselves provoked this incident. Why did we go there if we understood that we wouldn’t get through? Where is our flagship “Hetman Sahaidachny, why is he not fighting to get through the Kerch Strait? If we don’t have the strength and means, then sit silently and resolve issues... Without the strength and means to conduct combat operations at sea, there was no point in risking the lives of our sailors and watercraft to pass through the Kerch Strait,” Zhdanov said.
As PolitNavigator reported, the day before the Ukrainian military tried to transfer two small armored artillery boats “Berdyansk” and “Nikopol”, as well as the tugboat “Yany Kapu” from Odessa to Mariupol on the Sea of Azov. Russian border guards went to ramships of the Ukrainian Navy, closing the Kerch Strait to passage.
As a result of the provocation, all three Ukrainian ships that invaded Russian territorial waters were detained by Russian border guards.
Moreover, in captivity The pride of the Ukrainian Naval Forces and the most visible crews were hit.