On board UNS Cherkasy: The former Royal Navy minehunter preparing for duty in Ukraine

BFBS Forces News has been given a look on board Cherkasy, a former Royal Navy vessel turned minehunter now serving with the Ukrainian Navy.

The ship is one of two former Navy Sandown-class vessels – HMS Shoreham and HMS Grimsby – which were transferred to the Ukrainian Navy, now renamed Cherkasy and Chernihiv.

The two ships have remained in the UK while their Ukrainian crews train with Royal Navy personnel in mine countermeasures – the painstaking work of locating, identifying and disposing of explosives hidden beneath the water.

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The minehunting vessels are in the UK as part of Exercise Sea Breeze, a Ukrainian Navy exercise usually hosted in Odessa, Ukraine. 

However, it has been hosted in the UK since 2023, following Putin's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

The exercise involves 750 personnel from Ukraine and multiple Nato nations, including the UK and US, training in minehunting operations and explosive ordnance disposal with unmanned underwater and surface vessels.

The crews of UNS Chernihiv and Cherkasy have been brought up to Nato standard by Royal Navy personnel, as part of Operation Interflex-Maritime, the wider UK Armed Forces support for Ukraine.

During the tour, a Ukrainian Navy operations officer explained how Cherkasy searches for and classifies objects on the seabed before deploying a SeaFox vehicle to identify them. 

Its camera and light transmit live footage to the ship's operations room, allowing the crew to examine a suspected mine remotely. 

Cherkasy carries a 30mm cannon and general-purpose machine guns, which the officer said could also be used against aerial threats such as Shahed drones when back in Ukraine. 

Meanwhile, the ship's Royal Navy past remains visible in its wardroom, where a plaque bearing the name Shoreham is still displayed.