This html article is produced from an uncorrected text file through optical character recognition. Prior to 1940 articles all text has been corrected, but from 1940 to the present most still remain uncorrected. Artifacts of the scans are misspellings, out-of-context footnotes and sidebars, and other inconsistencies. Adjacent to each text file is a PDF of the article, which accurately and fully conveys the content as it appeared in the issue. The uncorrected text files have been included to enhance the searchability of our content, on our site and in search engines, for our membership, the research community and media organizations. We are working now to provide clean text files for the entire collection.
The Russian Black Sea Fleet’s Petya- II-class corvette SKR-112 defected to Odessa on 21 July 1992 and was promptly commissioned into the
nascent Ukrainian Navy. The ship appears here wearing pendant 815 just after her arrival. On 28 July, Ukraine commissioned the 5,000-ton
Slavutych, which had begun as an intelligence collector for the Soviet Navy’s Northern Fleet. Earlier in the year, some 42 smaller units based in Ukrainian ports were transferred to create the Ukrainian Maritime Border Guard, an organization distinct from the navy. The navy itself became potentially moot under an agreement signed on 3 August between the presidents of Russia and Ukraine, whereby both states would operate the 320-odd ships and craft of the Black Sea Fleet jointly through 1995, while they work out a means to divide its assets. Unfortunately, the only material agreement reached by negotiators so far has been the design of the joint fleet’s ensign.
Smoke billows from the 16th Sovremennyy-class guided-missile destroyer, Moskovskiy Komsomolets (a political name that has probably since been changed), during a 3 October 1991 incident at the Northern Shipyard (formerly Zhdanov Shipyard), St. Petersburg (formerly Leningrad). Things are indeed changing in Russia (formerly the USSR), but the accident rate in the Russian fleet unfortunately seems to be changing for the worse. Glasnost has brought a spate of reports of serious fires on board
important ships such as the now- decommissioned carrier Minsk, the Pacific Fleet Udaloy-class destroyers Admiral Tributs and Admiral Zakharov (in which a 30-hour conflagration last February meant the ship’s premature retirement), and a number of lesser vessels. Officially revealed in August was the loss of the Pacific Fleet Nanuchka-class guided-missile corvette Musson, which had been hit by a target drone on 16 April 1987 and lost in the ensuing fire.
Good news for Russian shipbuilders—if not to exporters of Persian Gulf oil—was the delivery and formal commissioning on 21 November 1992 of the Taregh (named after a famous Mohammedan warrior), Iran’s first Kilo-class diesel-powered attack submarine, seen here transiting the Mediterranean in mid-October. Having left the Baltic on 25 September and arrived in Iran on 11 November, the 3,076-ton (submerged displacement), 244-foot Kilo—accompanied by the Russian Navy Yug- class oceanographic research vessel Pluton—prominently displayed the new Russian Cross of St. Andrew
ensign throughout the voyage, rather than the flag of Iran. The Iranian Chief of Naval Operations had proudly proclaimed in June 1991 that Iran had ordered submarines in order to be able to control access to the vital Strait of Hormuz choke- point. Initial reports indicated that two Kilos had been ordered, with an option for a third, but Iranian dissidents stated in October that two more boats had just been ordered by the country, for a presumed total of four. Since 1985, countries importing Kilos have included Algeria (two), Poland (one), Romania (one), and India (eight), in addition to Iran’s four.
Proceedings / January