Ukrainian ship Yuri Olefirenko

Yuri Olefirenko
History
Soviet Navy
Name	SDK 137
Laid down	21 April 1970
Launched	31 December 1970
Commissioned	31 May 1971
Fate	Transferred to Ukrainian Navy in 1994
Ukraine
Name	Yuri Olefirenko (ex-SDK Kirovohrad)
Commissioned	10 January 1996
Status	In service
General characteristics
Class and type	Polnocny-class landing ship
Displacement	1,192 tons
Length	81.3 m
Beam	9.3 m
Draft	2.3 m
Speed	18 knots (33.3 km/h)
Complement	41 service member
Armament	2x2 30mm artillery AK-230 2x18 140mm launch system NURS "WM18" type[1] 2x4 MPADS launch system Strela-3

Yuri Olefirenko (Ukrainian: Юрій Олефіренко) is a mid-size landing ship of the Ukrainian Navy of Project 773 (NATO code: Polnocny-C). From its original commissioning in 1971 and until the 2014 Annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation, she was based in the Southern Naval Base at Donuzlav. Since then Yuri Olefirenko was relocated to Ochakiv.

Description[]

It was built at Stocznia Północna shipyard in Gdańsk, Poland in 1970 for the Soviet Navy and was numbered SDK-137. SDK is a Russian abbreviation for a mid-size landing ship (Russian: средний десантный корабль, Sredniy Desantnyi Korabl, SDK).

Although officially the Soviet Union was not involved in the 1973 Yom Kippur War, SDK 137 was part of the Soviet Mediterranean squadron that was in the area along with a marine infantry detachment loaded. The vessel's enlisted starshina 1st stage P. Grinev downed one of the Israeli F-4 Phantom planes with the ship's AK-230 artillery system and was awarded for that the Order of Red Star.

As a result of the Soviet Black Sea Fleet division between Russian Black Sea Fleet and the Ukrainian Navy, in 1994 SDK 137 was passed to the Ukrainian Navy and was renamed SKD Kirovohrad. In 1996 it was commissioned and given the pennant number U-401 Kirovohrad.

In 1998-2002 U401 was repaired at the Metallist Shiprepair Factory in Balaklava and once again in 2012–2013 at the Black Sea Shipyard in Mykolaiv.

At the start of the 2014 Russian military intervention in Ukraine, on 21 March 2014 Kirovohrad was surrendered to unmarked Russian naval personnel at the Donuzlav lake along with minesweeper Chernihiv. On 19 April 2014 the Russian military returned the ship along with the Ukrainian corvette Vinnytsia.

In 2016 it was renamed again to U-401 Yuri Olefirenko in a memory of Ukrainian marine who perished during the War in Donbass.

Gallery[]

• 

  former badge of Kirovohrad

• 

  Renaming of the ship in 2016

• 

  2018 training exercise

See also[]

• List of active Ukrainian Navy ships

References[]

External links[]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Yuri Olefirenko (ship, 1971).

• SDK Yuri Olefirenko, project 773, formerly Kirovohrad. Korabli.eu.
• SDK Kirovohrad, project 773. Flot2017. 1 May 2011.
• Ship's propulsion system: 40DM. Propulsionplant.ru.