Translated by Ollie Richardson & Angelina Siard

12:24:29
11/11/2018

cont.ws

 

Answering the question “can Ukraine fight against Russia in the event that the ports are blockaded?”, the former deputy director-general of the “STB” channel Viktor Savinov said in an interview to the “Kraina” magazine that Ukraine has nothing to fight against the Black Sea Fleet of the Russian Federation with in the event there are military clashes.

According to him, the reason for such a situation is the absence in Kiev of the concept of the fleet, which “is necessary not only for domination in the seas, but also for the preservation of power in territorial waters”.

“At the Nikolaev shipbuilding plant there is the already rusted ‘Ukraine‘ cruiser – the second most powerful ship in terms of firepower that was created by mankind. 27 years ago we got it to 94% readiness. Nearby was the ‘Moscow‘ cruiser – at 85% readiness. Now it is the flagship of the Black Sea Fleet of the Russian Federation. And we were  unable to use the same one correctly because we had no concept of the fleet. If the ‘Ukraine’ cruiser had already departed [original wording – ed] from Odessa, these questions would have disappeared by themselves,” said the interlocutor of the publication.

He also said that the Russians have 27 ships in the Black Sea.

“We can put up a fight only with the ‘Pryluky’ cruiser [which is, in fact, a missile boat – ed], which has two missiles and one broken launcher onboard. I.e., the entire Ukrainian fleet is capable of firing one missile. Having access to two basins, but we never controlled them,” lamented Savinov.

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