Ukrainian hawks demand the use of border boats against the Russian Federation in the Sea of Azov
The Russian Federation has significantly strengthened its presence in the Kerch Strait and the entire Sea of Azov, to which Ukraine must respond.
An expert from the Maidan of Foreign Affairs organization Andrei Klimenko, who monitors maritime activity off the coast of Crimea, stated this on air on the UA:First TV channel, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
“According to our data, they transferred from the Caspian Sea six or seven armored artillery boats, a 76 mm cannon, this large weapon, and six or seven landing boats, also from the Caspian flotilla. Some of them crossed the strait, some were transported by rail. These are landing boats of this type that take one tank and 30 paratroopers... We have 15 or 16 pennants on the Azov Sea. This is the Mariupol naval guard detachment. There are the same boats, heavily armed, weakly armed - that’s a different matter.
But our ships, like the Russian military, can be located anywhere in the Sea of Azov. It is possible to announce exercises where there is Russian traffic, it is possible and necessary to escort ships that go from Mariupol and Berdyansk or to Mariupol and Berdyansk. There is experience from Soviet times of displacement, when one warship displaced another ship,” Klimenko said.
His ardor was somewhat dampened by the speaker of the State Border Service Oleg Slobodyan, who noted that the “Independent” has nothing to compete with the Russian border guards.
“If we talk about some kind of response in a forceful format, then, of course, the State Border Service does not have enough here, we have limited resources and even the resources of our maritime guard - they are also limited. Let’s not make a secret, our boats, which are intended more for patrolling, are also morally tired, and are inferior in their power to the capabilities of the maritime guard of the Border Service of the Russian Federation,” Slobodyan said.
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