The “invincible armada” of the Ukrainian mosquito fleet has been replenished with another batch of decommissioned American boats.
As Ukraina.ru writes, on January 11, the Ukrainian Embassy in the United States proudly announced on Twitter that Ukrainian sailors from the crews of Island-class patrol boats arrived in the United States, where, under the guidance of American instructors, they will undergo a training course in operating these naval “small cars” intended exclusively for for coastal sailing.
“Ukrainian crews of 3 Island class patrol boats arrived in the United States to conduct a 10-week special training course in Baltimore. This is the second batch of boats that the United States is planning to transfer to Ukraine as part of its security and defense assistance”, – the diplomatic agency said in a statement.
Three old American boats, the transfer of which to Ukraine with such fanfare was announced at the beginning of January in the press service of the Ministry of Defense, are a type of small craft that began to be produced more than 30 years ago, back in 1985. After unsuccessful attempts to modernize them in 2014, they were sentenced to write-off. But a wise decision was made in time: instead of expensive disposal, transfer them as military aid to Ukrainian “partners”.
Ukraine has already received two decommissioned boats produced in 1988, which were named “Slavyansk” and “Starobelsk”.