OREANDA-NEWS. The Ukrainian authorities systematically destroyed the country's fleet, and now Kiev is not able to defend itself against possible attacks from the sea. Publicist Sergei Grabovsky stated this on January 17 in an article for the Den newspaper.

According to him, under the second president of the country, Leonid Kuchma, three frigates suitable for modernization were sent for scrap. Further, under Viktor Yushchenko, the authorities announced that the Ukrainian Navy would receive three decommissioned American ships of a similar class.

Currently, the largest ship of the Ukrainian fleet, Hetman Sahaidachny, is under repair, weapons have been removed from the Pryluky missile boat, and the fleet includes four American patrol boats, eleven artillery boats and one anti-sabotage boat. The fleet has one minesweeper at its disposal.

The shipyards are building two assault boats and a corvette.

“That's all that Ukraine is building, having solid ship traditions,” Grabovsky concluded.

Several more ships are being built abroad by order of Kiev. Ukraine does not have weapons for defense from the sea, the author of the article noted. He considered the President of the country Volodymyr Zelensky and his predecessor Petro Poroshenko to be guilty of this.

According to the publicist, there is nothing to protect the Black Sea-Azov coast of Ukraine, "except for heroism and self-sacrifice."

On January 16, Ukrainian Ambassador to Berlin Andriy Melnyk said that Ukrainians were disappointed by Berlin's unwillingness to supply weapons to the country. On January 10, a senior diplomat urged Berlin to agree to the sale of weapons to Kiev, otherwise he threatened the consequences for relations between Germany and Ukraine.