Ukrainian warships destroy practice mines and sail with HMS Dauntless in south coast exercise

Ukrainian sailors have used remotely operated underwater vehicles to destroy practice mines during seven days of training off England's south coast.

Five Ukrainian minehunters took part in the drills, which ended with the ships sailing in close formation alongside Royal Navy destroyer HMS Dauntless in the eastern Solent.

Henichesk, Mariupol, Melitopol, Chernihiv and Cherkasy are based in Portsmouth as part of international support for Ukraine's navy. 

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Their latest training covered waters off Dorset, Hampshire and the Isle of Wight.

Under the supervision of UK military personnel, the crews conducted gunnery shoots off Portland to practise defending their ships.

They then turned to locating, identifying and neutralising underwater explosive devices using the SeaFox mine-disposal system.

The remotely operated vehicle uses sonar to locate a previously detected object and a camera to identify it. 

Its mine-disposal version carries an explosive charge to destroy the target, with operators controlling the vehicle through a fibre-optic link.

Chernihiv and Cherkasy carried out live SeaFox firings, ending in controlled explosions that neutralised the exercise's mine targets.

Preparing to clear Ukraine's waters

Cherkasy and Chernihiv previously served with the Royal Navy as HMS Shoreham and HMS Grimsby. 

The Sandown-class minehunters arrived at their temporary Portsmouth base in April 2024.

Their passage to the Black Sea has been restricted by Turkey's application of the Montreux Convention. 

In January 2024, Turkish authorities confirmed that the two ships would not be allowed through the Turkish Straits while the war continued.

Ukraine's defence ministry says the five minehunters are intended to conduct maritime demining operations after the war. 

Clearing mines from shipping routes is also a central aim of the UK’s support for Ukraine through Operation Interflex. 

The south coast training formed the fifth and final phase of Exercise Lion Protector, which ran from August to October.

The exercise rehearsed military responses to threats across northern Europe, with its closing phase focused on protecting maritime infrastructure and keeping shipping routes secure.

It was held under the UK-led Joint Expeditionary Force, a group of 10 northern European countries.

Earlier phases included Royal Marines training alongside Danish forces and Faroese maritime agencies in the Faroe Islands, practising ship boarding and coastal raids in the strategically important Greenland-Iceland-UK Gap.

For the Ukrainian crews, the final formation sailing tested their ability to manoeuvre safely as a small task group alongside a larger warship.

Dauntless is preparing to escort HMS Prince of Wales when the UK flagship resumes her Firecrest 2026 deployment to the High North.