A ceremony held at the Zeebrugge naval base in Belgium to hand over two Tripartite-class minehunters to the Ukrainian Navy, which were provided from the fleets of Belgium and the Netherlands. The ship from the Belgian side was previously named BNS Narcis and will now be called “Mariupol”, while the one from the Netherlands was Zr.Ms. Vlaardingen and will be named “Melitopol” respectively.
By the end of 2025, another minehunter is expected to be transferred from the Netherlands, currently named Zr.Ms. Makkum, which will be called “Henichesk” in the Ukrainian Navy. This was reported by the press service of the Ministry of Defence of the Netherlands.
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The agency notes that information about the minehunters’ transfer ceremony was released with a certain delay for security reasons. Crew training for the two vessels already transferred is being conducted by both the Dutch and Belgian sides.
Defense Express adds that the first report about a possible transfer of minehunters from the Netherlands to the Ukrainian Navy appeared in March 2023, and at that time, a plan was outlined to receive three ships by 2025. In March 2024, a message appeared regarding Belgium’s intention to also transfer one minehunter, which was described as “the third ship of this class in cooperation with the Netherlands.”
This veiled wording may indicate that in the end, the Belgian and Dutch sides jointly decided to allocate three mine countermeasure vessels of the same class to the Ukrainian fleet. In the Belgian fleet, these minehunters are designated as Tripartite, while in the Dutch fleet they are referred to as Alkmaar.
Due to the Montreux Convention, which prohibits warring parties from passing warships into the Black Sea, it is unlikely that the transferred minehunters will be able to move to Ukraine’s Black Sea ports until the full-scale invasion by Russia ends. The official statement by the Dutch Ministry of Defence does not provide details on future operations involving these ships.
The Alkmaar-class (also known as Tripartite-class) mine countermeasure vessels have the following specifications:
- Length and displacement: 51 meters, 605 tons
- Speed and range: up to 15 knots, up to 3,000 nautical miles at 12 knots
- Crew: 55 personnel
- Armament and equipment: 20 mm automatic F2 gun, two 12.7 mm and 7.62 mm machine guns, a mine-hunting sonar, and two ECA PAP 104 underwater drones for mine disposal.
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