Not wanting their largest warship to fall into the hands of the Russian army, the sailors in the port of Odessa sank this flagship themselves.
Russia’s military campaign in Ukraine has passed the second week, the military situation continues to have many tense developments and shows no sign of cooling down. The Russian army and the Donbass militia continued to capture many positions and besieged many important cities of Ukraine.
Many cities and towns along the Black Sea of Ukraine fell into the hands of the Russian army, the only remaining major port city, Odessa, is also falling into isolation.
On social networks appeared many pictures of the war situation around the city of Odessa. Most notably, at the city’s military port, Ukraine’s largest warship, the Hetman Sahaidachny, was destroyed by its own sailors to prevent it from falling into Russian hands.
Hetman Sahaidachny is a frigate of the Ukrainian Navy, built at the Kerch shipyard as a Project 1135.1 Nerei/Krivak III/Menzhinskiy-class patrol vessel
The ship was launched on March 29, 1992 and put into operation on April 2, 1993. Hetman Sahaidachny has been based in Odessa since March 2014, and is the flagship of the Ukrainian navy. Hetman Sahaidachny’s main armament is a 100 mm cannon.
Hetman Sahaidachny was designated as U130. In 1994, Hetman Sahaidachny set out for France to participate in the 50th anniversary of the Allied landings in Normandy.
In 1995, Hetman Sahaidachny visited Abu Dhabi of the UAE in the exhibition “Idex-95”. After that, the ship was scheduled to visit Norfolk, Virginia of the United States with the Kostiantyn Olshansky, but only Kostiantyn Olshansky visited but for unknown reasons Hetman Sahaidachny did not come.
From November 2006 to November 2007, the ship Hetman Sahaidachny underwent major repairs at Mykolaiv at a cost of 15 million Hryvnia. In 2008, Hetman Sahaidachny participated in the exercise “Operation Active Effort” in the Mediterranean Sea.
In February 2013, it was announced that the Hetman Sahaidachny would participate in NATO’s “Operation Ocean Shield”, an anti-piracy operation off the Horn of Africa.
Hetman Sahaidachny joined the European Union Navy in early January 2014 for anti-piracy operations. During the 2014 conflict, while Russian forces took control of Crimea, Russian state media RT on March 1, 2014 incorrectly reported that the ship’s crew had defected to Russia.
Shortly after, the Wall Street Journal quoted the Ukrainian Defense Ministry’s announcement that the ship was still flying the Ukrainian flag at the Greek port of Crete. According to the Ukrainian Defense Ministry, the ship’s commander stated that the crew had never defected to the Russian side.
In July 2018, Hetman Sahaidachny participated in the multinational exercise Sea Breeze 2018. On April 2, 2018, the ship celebrated its 25th anniversary of its commissioning. In January 2022, Ukraine brought the ship into the port of Odessa for refit and upgrade.
And the port of Odessa is probably the last stop for Hetman Sahaidachny and also the end for the Ukrainian navy. The Ukrainian sailors explained that they did not want the ship to fall into the hands of the Russians and become a symbol for the Russian military to propagate.
