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Minehunters and mixed signals on 11 December 2023
Summary
A look back at a day when British naval aid, Hungarian lobbying and Republican demands pulled in different directions over Ukraine.
What did support for Ukraine look like on 11 December 2023? It looked like a pledge of ships from London, and a debate in Washington about whether aid should continue at all.
The United Kingdom announced that day that it would donate two Royal Navy Sandown-class minehunters to Ukraine. Doubts were raised almost at once over the logistics and timing of their delivery, because Turkey controls access to the Black Sea through the Bosphorus. The Sandown class is a group of fifteen minehunters built primarily for the Royal Navy, with the first commissioned on 9 June 1989. Ukraine's navy was later among the class's operators, alongside the Royal Saudi Navy and the Estonian Navy.
Pressure in Washington
The naval pledge came as the aid package proposed in the United States Congress faced resistance. Senator JD Vance said Ukraine should be willing to give up part of its territory to end the war. He and other Republicans opposed the package.
On the same day, representatives of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán met United States Republicans in Washington. The subject of the talks was ending EU and US military support to Ukraine.
A day of contrasts
Taken together, the reports from 11 December 2023 showed two tracks. One was a European government adding to Ukraine's naval capacity, however uncertain the route for the ships. The other was a push in Washington, with Hungarian involvement, to curtail Western military support and to link an end to the war with territorial concessions by Kyiv.
The questions raised that day over how the minehunters would reach the Black Sea were practical rather than political. They concerned access through the Bosphorus, which Turkey controlled. The questions in Washington were about whether the aid package would move forward at all.
