and the
Black Sea Fleet on
Navy Day in 2012|left The ships of this company were considered the most durable, they were actively applied in military campaigns since the early 1970s. As a result of the distribution of the
Black Sea Fleet,
PM-9 changed her name to
Krasnodon. In 2001, she was renamed the
Donbas. During her service in the Ukrainian Navy, the ship has repeatedly participated in international exercises, as well as in local military parades and cruises. On 11 November 2007, the ship was caught in a hurricane near
Sevastopol, but suffered minor injuries and remained intact due to the assistance of the Russian tug
MB-160. The ship
Donbas marked her fourth decade of naval service on 4 December 2009. On this occasion, the
Ministry of Defence of Ukraine allocated on 6 December 2010 around ₴4 million for the ship reconstruction. On 25 January 2011, she successfully passed the first stage of sea trials. On 20 March 2014, the ship was captured by the
Russian Navy during the
annexation of Crimea. On 17 April 2014, she was released by Russia and transported from Sevastopol to
Odesa by the Ukrainian tug
Hennadiy Savelyev. On 27 September 2014, with the
war in Donbas at its height,
Donbas shot down a pro-Russian drone while sailing off Mariupol. On 4 September 2016, the ship was damaged by fire at Odesa. The search and rescue vessel
Donbas and the sea tug got underway from Odesa on 20 September 2018 and transited the
Kerch Strait on 23 September, escorted by a number of Russian Navy units. Ukrainian Navy s and got underway from the port of
Berdyansk to meet the two vessels as they entered the
Sea of Azov. Ukrainian President
Petro Poroshenko congratulated the crews of the two ships on a successful transit on his
Facebook page, adding that they would become part of a newly created base in the Sea of Azov. "The rescue ship
Donbas and the tugboat
Korets have arrived in
Mariupol. Two small armored gunboats, the
Kremenchuk and the
Lubny [which were previously redeployed to the Azov Sea and set out to meet the other two ships on 23 September] arrived together with them," as stated at the Ukrainian Military Portal. Satellite images published on 6 April 2022 show the
Donbas being engulfed in heavy smoke in the
port of Mariupol, indicating the ship was likely hit. On 16 April 2022, Ukrainian Defence Ministry confirmed the ship was destroyed, purportedly by artillery fire, during the
Siege of Mariupol. ==See also==