Ukrainian corvette Ternopil (U209)

Ternopil (U209) is an anti-submarine corvette of the Ukrainian Navy.

History
Ternopil is the ship 1124ME project (NATO reporting name: Grisha V class, in the Soviet classification: Albatros class Альбатрос).

Russian type designation is Small Anti-Submarine Ship. The Grisha class anti-submarine ship is designed to search for and destroy enemy submarines found in coastal areas. They were equipped with a variety of ASW weapons and an SA-N-4 surface-to-air missile launcher. All were fitted with retractable fin stabilizers. Some of them (The Grisha II class) were built for the border guard.

The Grisha V class ships were built between 1985 and 2002. This incorporated further modifications with the twin 57 mm guns being replaced by a single 76 mm gun. Thirty ships were built. About 28 ships remain in the Russian Navy. Two ships — Lutsk and Ternopil were built in Ukraine. Lutsk was launched on May 22, 1993 and Ternopil were entered service in February 16, 2006 with the Ukrainian Navy.

Service
The Corvette was laid down on April 23, 1991 at the Leninska Kuznya shipyard. The ship was launched on March 15, 2002. The corvette was moved from Kiev to Mykolaiv. Some day later the Corvette was move again, this time to a port of Sevastopol for testing. During the trials was corvette 1668 nmi. On February 15, 2006 an act was signed adding the ship to Ukrainian Navy. The Ukrainian naval flag was raised on the ship on February 16, 2006.

The first sea trip was the ship in late 2006 for NATO Mission Oriented Training/MОТ. Crew of Ukrainian corvette, in practice, carried out Active Endeavour tactical episodes. Between May 25 and July 2007 Ternipil took part in NATO Active Endeavour anti-terrorist operation.

In the future, Ternopil participated in Operation Active Endeavour regularly in 2008, 2009 and 2010.

Crew

 * Captain, 3rd rank Roman Piatnytskiy
 * Captain, 3rd rank Olexandr Mukhladi

Former Captains

 * Captain, 2nd rank Serhiy Izotov
 * Captain, 3rd rank Roman Piatnytskiy