Vote Leaves Serbian Navy High and Dry

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The New York Sun

BRUSSELS, Belgium – Serbia is about to join the select club of former naval powers.

Officers, who remember the heyday of the old Yugoslav navy – it boasted nearly 80 warships – are weighing their options following Sunday’s independence referendum in Serbia’s sister republic of Montenegro.

The Yes vote means Serbia will lose its sea ports and naval bases.

A military adviser to the government of Montenegro, General Radosav Martinovic, said the Serbian navy, which currently has more than 30 warships, including submarines, would be lucky to end up with some patrol craft on the Danube.

The general invited Serbia’s most capable admirals and officers to stay on and help build a new Montenegrin fleet. The offer may not be that attractive, however, as the new-born country is planning a coastguard-style force, based on fast patrol boats, plus a three-masted, 180-foot sail training ship, the Jadran.

The Montenegrin authorities have started auctioning off some of the most picturesque bases on the Adriatic to tourist developers. Talks with a Canadian tycoon, Peter Munk, are also well advanced over a project to turn the naval shipyards at Tivat into the Mediterranean’s largest and most luxurious marina for “mega-yachts.”


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