Netherlands Sending Minehunter to Ukraine

The Netherlands will hand Ukraine a Dutch minehunter in June, adding another ship built to find and destroy naval mines before they hit ports or shipping lanes. (president.gov.ua) Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on April 16 in Vlissingen that the vessel is Zr.Ms. Makkum, an Alkmaar-class mine countermeasure ship that Dutch crews are now using to train Ukrainian sailors. The Netherlands will complete that training before the transfer, Zelenskyy’s office said. (president.gov.ua) When it enters Ukrainian service, the ship will be renamed Henichesk, after a Ukrainian Navy vessel lost near the Kinburn Spit in June 2022, according to Ukraine’s Defense Ministry. The ministry said many of the sailors training aboard Makkum already have combat experience at sea. (mod.gov.ua) A minehunter is designed to locate explosives on the seabed or in the water and then neutralize them, rather than simply sweeping an area with cables. Ukraine’s Defense Ministry said the crew is training with underwater drones that can detect, identify and destroy mines. (mod.gov.ua) That mission has become central in the Black Sea, where mines have threatened commercial traffic, naval movement and access to ports since Russia’s full-scale invasion. Ukraine’s Defense Ministry said the ship is meant to keep sea lanes, coastal waters and harbor approaches clear of explosives and to protect naval units operating in mined areas. (mod.gov.ua) Henichesk will be Ukraine’s fifth mine countermeasure vessel, according to Ukrainian officials. Ukrainska Pravda, citing the Defense Ministry, said the earlier transfers were the Sandown-class Cherkasy and Chernihiv from the United Kingdom and the Alkmaar-class Mariupol and Melitopol from Belgium and the Netherlands. (pravda.com.ua) The Makkum itself is an older but specialized platform: the Dutch Defense Ministry says it served from 1985 until it was decommissioned on November 25, 2024. The vessel’s job in Dutch service was also mine warfare, including keeping sea, coastal waters and harbor entrances free of explosives. (defensie.nl) Open-source ship records list Makkum at about 51.6 meters long, with a displacement a little above 500 tons and a top speed of roughly 15 knots. Those are modest numbers for a warship, but minehunters are built for careful search work, not speed or heavy firepower. (losbarcosdeeugenio.com) The Alkmaar class came out of a joint Dutch, Belgian and French program to build dedicated mine-countermeasure ships for shallow and coastal waters. That design lineage is one reason Ukraine has been able to build a mixed fleet around British Sandown and Dutch-Belgian Tripartite or Alkmaar vessels. (wikipedia.org) If the June handover stays on schedule, Ukraine will have another crewed platform for clearing mines before ships can move more freely through contested waters. The Dutch transfer also extends a training pipeline that is now as important as the hull itself. (president.gov.ua)