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Ukraine has teased its future naval flagship with footage of testing that it boasts demonstrates its “high combat capability.”
Kyiv’s navy posted a two-minute video of aerial and interior footage of the corvette Hetman Ivan Mazepa on social media. Segueing from the control room to a view of it firing its weapons, the video was next to a statement touting how “it demonstrated excellent results, accurately hitting air, sea and ground targets.”
The Turkish-built Ada-class anti-submarine corvette was officially laid down on September 7, 2021, five months before Vladimir Putin‘s full-scale invasion and its launch on October 2, 2022, came eight months into the war.
Oleksii Samsonov/Getty Images
It is equipped with “modern weapons systems that significantly increase its combat capabilities,” Ukraine’s navy said. It can fit up to 86 crew, destroy air, surface and underwater targets and provide naval gunfire support.
The vessel is named after a prominent Ukrainian Cossack and military and civic leader who turned against the Tsardom of Russia of Peter the Great and died in 1709.
Ukraine’s navy suggested that the vessel has undergone some recent fine-tuning, such as the strengthening of its anti-aircraft defenses.
The vessel “is not only a showcase of cutting-edge technology, but also a symbol of Ukraine’s indomitable fleet,” said the statement, which added, “We are ready for the new challenges of war.”
The video did not give a date or location of the trials, but it was first spotted undergoing sea trials on May 30 in the Sea of Marmara, near Turkey, according to Naval News.
⚡️ The Ukrainian Navy has successfully tested the Hetman Ivan Mazepa corvette.
During the artillery firing test, the vessel demonstrated excellent results, accurately hitting air, sea, and land targets.
📹: Ukrainian Navy pic.twitter.com/a87wj5WG4S
— UNITED24 Media (@United24media) November 9, 2024
The maritime publication also said that the corvette is fitted with “a Leonardo 76 mm Super Rapid gun with a stealth cupola” and that antennas on the aft side will probably guide its surface-to-air missile system.
Ukrainian news outlet Radio Svoboda reported in August 2021 that the vessel will be equipped with Harpoon anti-ship missiles as its primary strike system. Although other systems such as Neptunes were also being considered.
Newsweek has contacted the Ukrainian Defense Ministry via email for comment.
In August 2024, the office of Ukraine’s President Volodymr Zelensky said that the corvette will help the country in its aim to protect its national interests in the Black and Azov Seas as well as the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean.
Ukraine has delivered a series of blows to Russia’s navy by sinking, destroying or damaging a large chunk of its Black Sea Fleet, which has been driven back from the occupied peninsula of Crimea.
Ukraine also attacked Russian navy vessels in the Caspian Sea for the first time on Wednesday, following a drone strike in Dagestan in the south of Russia.