Direct proof of use
The Project 1258 Yevgenya-class record in the 2014 Russia-Ukraine War is tied to the Ukrainian Navy's Henichesk, hull number U360, formerly RT-214. KCHF identifies RT-214 as a Project 1258E minesweeper transferred from the Black Sea Fleet to the Ukrainian Naval Forces in January 1996 and later records the vessel as sunk during the war in 2022.
Ukraine's Ministry of Defence separately connected the Henichesk name to a ship lost during a combat mission near the Kinburn Spit in June 2022. Ukrainian and defense reporting describe the same vessel as a Project 1258 harbor or raid minesweeper, giving the catalog a direct weapon-conflict link rather than only a general class-service claim.
Sources: KCHF RT-214 Henichesk, Ukraine MoD Alkmaar Henichesk, Defence Blog Henichesk Replacement
Timeline
The vessel entered Ukrainian service before the war, but its conflict record begins with Russia's 2014 seizure of Crimea. UNITED24 Media reports that Henichesk's commander, Oleksandr Boichuk, refused to surrender the ship during the Russian move against Ukrainian naval assets and kept it under Ukrainian control at sea before Russian forces eventually boarded and moored it.
The 2022 loss is reported with slightly different date framing. Ukraine's Ministry of Defence and later reporting tied the loss to a June 2022 combat mission near the Kinburn Spit, while KCHF's vessel page gives 25 August 2022 as the sinking date and attributes it to Russian air forces in the northwestern Black Sea. This page treats the loss as a documented Ukrainian Project 1258E wartime loss, while preserving the date discrepancy between sources.
Sources: UNITED24 Boichuk Henichesk, Ukraine MoD Alkmaar Henichesk, KCHF RT-214 Henichesk, Ukrainska Pravda Boichuk Return
Role in Ukrainian service
Henichesk's documented wartime role was coastal and harbor mine-countermeasures service rather than strike warfare. KCHF describes Project 1258 as a small inshore minehunter family with a glass-reinforced-plastic hull and anti-mine equipment, and the Ukrainian MoD article on the later replacement vessel places the Henichesk name within Ukraine's mine-countermeasure force.
During the 2014 Crimea phase, the vessel's importance was mainly defensive and symbolic: it was one of the Ukrainian naval assets caught in the seizure of Crimea and Donuzlav blockade context. UNITED24 Media says the commander refused an ultimatum, kept the ship ready and under the Ukrainian flag, and resisted boarding before the ship was forcibly moored.
During the full-scale invasion phase, the strongest public claim is the vessel's loss while on a combat mission near the Kinburn Spit. The available public sources do not give enough detail to specify the mission's mine-clearing tasking, target, or tactical effect; they support the narrower claim that Ukraine fielded the Project 1258E minesweeper Henichesk in the war and lost it in 2022.
Sources: KCHF RT-214 Henichesk, UNITED24 Boichuk Henichesk, Ukraine MoD Alkmaar Henichesk, Euromaidan Press Replacement Henichesk
