During the recent visit to Ukraine, Dutch Minister of Defense Kajsa Ollongren announced the transfer of two Alkmaar mine-hunting trawlers to the Ukrainian Navy, the ships will be handed "approximately by 2035," while the training of crews would begin in near future, she said.
Meanwhile Ukrainian defense minister Oleksii Reznikov stated that today's meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group in the Ramstein format would be dedicated to the "ship question" and reinforcing the naval fleet of Ukraine. He also shared a video with a hint on the possible topic of discussion, in which he sings "we are waiting blue-yellow submarine."
Read more: The Netherlands Will Transfer Two Ships to Ukraine
Alkmaar (Tripartite) ship has the following specifications:
| Hull length and displacement | 51 meters, 605 tons |
| Max speed and mobility | up to 15 knots, 3,000 miles at 12 knots |
| Crew | 55 personnel |
| Armament and equipment | 20mm F2 autocannon, two pairs of 12.7mm and 7.62 machine guns, a sonar for searching mines, and two ECA PAP 104 underwater drones to eliminate the mines |
Old as it is, Alkmaar still enjoys high demand from all over the world. For instance you can find information that in 2021, Greece agreed with the Netherlands the procurement of six trawlers of the Alkmaar project. And also that Holland supplied Pakistan with two mine-hunters of this type in October 2022.
That said, it is interesting how the Dutch managed to take up on both export orders, since we know from The Military Balance 2022 (that is, as of the beginning of last year) that the Navy of the Netherlands had only six Alkmaar ships in service.
And it seems like the Dutch will need the time until 2025 to complete all the procedures related to the commissioning of the ships from its Naval Forces, revision of all its export plans and the training of Ukrainians on the Alkmaar.
Another factor that influences how quickly the Dutch ships can arrive in Ukraine is the fact that Turkiye has closed the Bosphorus and Dardanelles for both russian and Ukrainian warships as two countries at war, and for non-Black Sea countries, too.
As for the hint about the "blue-yellow submarine", the answer may be quite prosaic: these may be the underwater drones for search missions or other tasks set by the Navy of Ukraine in the Black Sea, because even the mentioned ECA PAP 104 drones from the Alkmaar trawler's equipment are yellow.
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