September 27, 2018 (CNN.com) The U.S. Coast Guard plans to
transfer two former 110-foot Coast Guard ships to Ukraine during a ceremony on
Thursday in Baltimore. Coast Guard Vice Adm. Michael McAllister and Ukraine's
President Petro Poroshenko are expected to attend the transfer ceremony, CNN
reported.
The transfer of the two armed Coast Guard cutters come as tensions
between Ukraine and Russia in the Sea of Azov have increased in recent weeks,
with Kyiv and the U.S. accusing Moscow of interfering with Ukrainian shipping
in the region. "The United States condemns Russia's harassment of
international shipping in the Sea of Azov and the Kerch Strait," State
Department spokesperson Heather Nauert said in a statement late last month.
Photo
from facebook.com/navy.mil.gov.ua
"Russia has delayed hundreds of commercial
vessels since April and in recent weeks has stopped at least 16 commercial
ships attempting to reach Ukrainian ports," she added. A U.S. defense
official told CNN that the cutters Drummond and Cushin were purchased by
Ukraine from the Pentagon's Excess Defense Articles program. The Island-class
cutters are typically armed with a 25 mm machine gun mount and four .50-caliber
machine guns.
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