Ukrainian corvette Ternopil

Ternopil (U209) is a Grisha-class anti-submarine corvette of the Ukrainian Navy, In March 2014 the ship was captured by the Russian forces during the Crimean crisis.

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

The 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. The Grisha II class was built for the border guard.

The Grisha V class ships were built between 1985 and 2002. They incorporated further modifications with a single 76 mm gun replacing the twin 57 mm guns. 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 1668 nmi from Kiev to Mykolaiv. The corvette was moved again to the port of Sevastopol for trials testing. On February 15, 2006 an act was signed adding the ship to Ukrainian Navy; and 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. The Ukrainian crew practiced tactical episodes between May 25 and July 2007 while Ternipil took part in the NATO Active Endeavour anti-terrorist operation.

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

On March 20, 2014, the ship was captured by Russian forces during the Crimean crisis. The ship scheduled to be handed back to Ukraine in May 2014. But as of August 6, 2014 it was not; Russia suspended the return Ukrainian Navy materials from Crimea to Ukraine proper ostensibly because Ukraine did not renew its unilaterally declared ceasefire on July 1, 2014 in the War in Donbass. In 2016 it was reported that pieces from the Ternopil were being used to repair Russia's Black Sea Fleet.

Crew

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

Former Captains

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