10 Hryven Ukrainian Navy

Issued in 2018, this coin arrived at a fraught moment for the Ukrainian Navy — just four years after Russia's annexation of Crimea had stripped Ukraine of its main naval base at Sevastopol and forced a wholesale reorganization of the fleet around Odesa. The Navy had lost the majority of its shore infrastructure overnight, and several vessels were seized or defected. A commemorative coin honoring naval forces under those circumstances carries a pointed institutional weight that purely peacetime issues do not.

The following year, in November 2019, Russian forces would fire upon and capture three Ukrainian naval vessels in the Kerch Strait.