The Ukrainian Navy Is Ready To Rescue People Again As Ex-British Helicopters Arrive

Just two months after the United Kingdom announced it would donate to Ukraine three ex-Royal Navy Westland Sea King helicopters, the first of the classic rotorcraft has appeared in Ukraine.

And that means the Ukrainian navy has begun to rebuild its search-and-rescue capability, months after Russian forces destroyed it.

Ukrainian defense minister Oleksii Reznikov on Saturday posted a video depicting a Sea King in Ukrainian colors conducting winch training “near the Black Sea.”

The 1980s-vintage Sea King HU.5—which originally was an anti-submarine helicopter before ending its long service as a utility ‘copter stripped of its sub-hunting gear—flies low over a field and hovers as a crew member lowers, then raises, a passenger on the winch.

The winch training underscores the likely primary role of the Sea King in Ukrainian service. While there are lots of things the Ukrainian navy could do with its ex-British ‘copters, it seems the fleet primarily needs them as replacements for its apparently long-gone Mil Mi-14s.

The Ukrainian navy began Russia’s wider war on Ukraine back in late February with—you guessed it—three search-and-rescue helicopters. The Soviet-vintage Mi-14s flew from Odesa, Ukraine’s strategic port on the western Black Sea.

It’s possible just one of the Mi-14s was airworthy. In early June, this Mi-14 was flying over Odesa when a Russian Sukhoi fighter intercepted it.

Col. Ihor Bedzay, a deputy commander of the Ukrainian navy and the Mi-14’s pilot, tried and failed to evade the Sukhoi. Bedazy and presumably the rest of the crew died when an R-73 infrared-guided missile struck the helicopter.

It seems the June shoot-down left the Ukrainian navy with no operational rescue helicopters. Since then there hasn’t been any photographic evidence of Ukrainian Mi-14s in flight.

After 11 months of war, the Ukrainian navy has just one large ship left—the amphibious landing ship Yuri Olefirenko.

But even without big ships, the fleet is in the thick of the fighting. Its growing flotilla of patrol boats guard the Dnipro River. Naval special operations forces riding in rigid-hull inflatable boats raid Russian positions on the Kinburn Peninsula and as far south as Crimea. The navy’s explosive drones poke at the Russian navy’s Black Sea anchorages. And the fleet’s marine brigades fight alongside the army in southern Ukraine.

The Ukrainian navy still very much is at war. And its boat crews, commandos and marines occasionally still will need rescuing. A mission that now is the responsibility of a trio of ex-British Sea Kings.