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Female captain not to blame for sinking of $61M navy ship: New Zealand defense minister
New Zealand’s Defense Minister has clapped back at claims that the appointment of a female captain to commandeer a $61 million navy ship ultimately led to its sinking.
The navy’s specialist dive and hydrographic vessel, The Manawanui, sank on Sunday on a reef off the coast of Samoa that it was surveying. Its 75 crew and passengers were ordered to abandon the vessel on life rafts and were later rescued. The sinking marked New Zealand’s first ship lost since World War II and an investigation has been launched into what led to its demise.
The incident sparked debate online about whether the captain, Commander Yvonne Gray, was hired, in part due to her gender and sexuality in accordance with diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) ideology.
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The HMNZS Manawanui pictured in 2022. (Christopher Weissenbornnzdf via AP)
Judith Collins, who is New Zealand’s first female defense minister, rebuked such claims and said there is a «misogynistic narrative» surrounding the sinking. The cause of the sinking has yet to be determined.
«A court of inquiry has been stood up to establish what caused this terrible incident. «The one thing that we already know did not [because] it is the gender of the ship’s captain, a woman with 30 years’ naval experience who on the night made the call to get her people to safety,» Collins said.
She said she was appalled to see the comments online from «armchair admirals, people who will never have to make decisions which mean life or death for their subordinates.»
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Lieutenant Commander Tala Mafile’o of the Royal Tongan Navy presents Commander Yvonne Gray, left, with a carved wooden bowl as a memento of the RNZN’s participation in the 50th Anniversary Fleet Review. (New Zealand Defence Force via AP)
«I thought seriously in 2024 what the hell is going on here with people who are sitting there in their armchair operating a keyboard making comments about people that they do not know, about an area they do not know and they are just vile. Where’s a bit of decency,» Collins said.
She added women in uniform were being abused in the street following the incident.
«This is outrageous behavior and New Zealand is not known for this and we are better than it,» she added. «We are all appointed on merit, not gender,» she added.
The vessel lost power and ran aground on Saturday evening one nautical mile off the southern coast of the Samoan island of Upolu. By Sunday morning, the vessel was «listing heavily,» and smoke was spotted around 6:40 a.m., the navy said. By 9 a.m. the ship slipped below the surface.
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Judith Collins, New Zealand’s defense minister, has rebuked claims that the appointment of a female captain to commandeer a $61 million navy ship ultimately led to its sinking. (AP )
The sinking prompted fears of a major fuel spill. On Thursday, officials in Samoa said while the vessel was leaking oil from three places, the amount was decreasing each day and was dissipating quickly due to strong winds in the area.
Passengers, including civilian scientists and foreign military personnel, left the vessel on lifeboats in «challenging conditions» and darkness, New Zealand’s Chief of Navy Rear Admiral Garin Golding told reporters after the sinking.
The vessel had been in service for New Zealand since 2019, was 20 years old and had previously belonged to Norway. The military said the ship, purchased for $61 million ($100 million NZ dollars), was not covered by replacement insurance.
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
Ukraine on Tuesday agreed to a preliminary proposal put forward by the Trump administration that called for a 30-day ceasefire contingent on Russia’s acceptance of the terms in a major step toward ending the brutal war.
But even if the Trump administration is able to get Moscow to the negotiating table and end the three-year war under a new treaty, which several security experts say Russian President Vladimir Putin is under no real pressure to do, can the Kremlin chief be trusted?
Russia under Putin has repeatedly violated formal international agreements intended to protect Ukraine’s sovereignty, chiefly from its former Soviet overlord.
From left, U.S. National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan, Saudi National Security Advisor Mosaad bin Mohammed al-Aiban, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha and Ukrainian Head of Presidential Office Andriy Yermak hold a meeting in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, Tuesday, March 11, 2025. (Saul Loeb/Pool Photo via AP)
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These agreements include the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, in which Ukraine agreed to relinquish its nuclear arsenal in exchange for assurances over its territorial integrity after its 1991 withdrawal from the Soviet Union, as well as the 1997 Treaty on Friendship, Cooperation, and Partnership by which Moscow and Kyiv agreed to respect one another’s existing borders. Both deals were first violated in 2014 when Putin seized Crimea and backed Russian separatist forces in the Donbas region.
The 2014-2015 Minsk Agreements, though criticized as «weak,» attempted to end Russia’s aggression in eastern Ukraine, an agreement that was never fully achieved and was again violated by Putin’s 2022 invasion.
Some world leaders and security officials, including Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, have cautioned that a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine is unlikely to be achieved in the near term and against Putin’s reliability in adhering to any international agreement without serious security commitments from the West.
«The problem here is that the Russians only understand win-lose outcomes, which means that to prevent them from ever attacking Ukraine again, they must see themselves to be the losers in the war just as they did at the end of the Cold War,» Michael Ryan, former deputy assistant secretary of Defense for European and NATO Policy and former acting assistant secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs, told Fox News Digital.
Ukrainian soldiers fire a cannon near Bakhmut, an eastern city where fierce battles against Russian forces have been taking place in the Donetsk region of Ukraine, May 15, 2023. (AP Photo/Libkos)
Security officials interviewed by Fox News Digital argued that securing Ukraine’s future is not about «trusting» Putin. It’s about actually putting Russia in a position where any future violations would hinder Moscow more than it could be enticed by unchecked opportunity.
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«Even if a deal is concluded, Russia will continue clandestine operations across the world to expand its footprint in terms of geopolitical influence,» Rebekah Koffler, a former DIA intelligence officer, told Fox News Digital, noting the former KGB operative can be counted on to «continue election interference campaigns, cyber warfare, espionage and destabilization operations across the globe.
«There’s no such thing as peace in Russia’s strategic military thinking. You are in a constant confrontation.»
Ryan argued a Trump-brokered peace deal needs to reflect on the lessons learned from previously failed agreements, like the post-WWI Treaty of Versailles, which arguably led to the rise of Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany.
«How to solve this conundrum? Just as we did after World War II … reconstruction of Ukraine must include economic reconciliation with Russia,» Ryan said. «The Russians saw how we rebuilt the losing side in World War II Germany and Japan. They expected us to do the same for Russia after the Cold War, but we did not.
«We can’t make that same mistake if we want lasting peace for Ukraine and if we want to split Russia from China,» he added, noting other adversaries are watching how the West handles this geopolitical hurdle.
Ukrainian soldiers of the Aidar battalion training at an undetermined location in Donetsk oblast, 4 April 2023. (Diego Herrera Carcedo/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
There are numerous obstacles when it comes to the Trump administration’s attempt to negotiate with Putin, including arguments over occupied territory, international recognition of occupied lands, international aid and support for Ukraine, international confiscation of frozen Russian assets, Zelenskyy’s standing at home, the return of prisoners of war and the return of abducted Ukrainian children, according to Peter Rough, senior fellow and director of the Center on Europe and Eurasia at the Hudson Institute.
«Putin has officially annexed four Ukrainian oblasts as well as Crimea. But Moscow has yet to conquer any of the four entirely,» Rough told Fox News Digital while traveling to Ukraine. «I can’t imagine that Ukraine will withdraw from the areas they control, having fought tooth and nail to defend those regions.
«I also doubt that the West will offer de jure recognition to the areas Moscow controls,» he added. «So, Putin would have to swallow all of that in a peace deal.»
Each issue alone is a massive undertaking to negotiate, and while Ukraine this week may be outlining concessions it could make to secure a deal coordinated by the U.S., Putin is unlikely to do the same, according to Koffler, who briefed NATO years ahead of the 2022 invasion on Putin’s plans.
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«Putin is unlikely to make any concessions as he believes he is in a strong position,» Koffler told Fox News Digital. «The disparity in combat potential dramatically favors Russia over Ukraine, which is out-manned and outgunned because Putin transitioned the Russian military and economy on a wartime footing seven years prior to the invasion of Ukraine.»
Russian President Vladimir Putin chairs a meeting on the draft of a 2024 federal budget and the planning period of 2025 and 2026, via video link at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, Sept. 18, 2023 (Sputnik/Mikhail Metzel/Pool)
«Putin believes he has prepared Russia to fight till the last Ukrainian and till the last missile in NATO’s arsenal,» she added, echoing a January warning issued by NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, who said Russia’s defense industry output over a three-month period equates to what all of NATO produces an entire year.
«Putin is highly unlikely to agree to a ceasefire because he doesn’t want to give a strategic pause to Ukraine, the U.S., and NATO to re-arm,» Koffler said. «He doesn’t trust Washington. He doesn’t trust President Trump any more than we trust Putin.
«He trusts Trump even less than Biden because he could read Biden and predict his behavior. He cannot read Trump because Trump is unpredictable.»
The experts argued there are too many variables that could play out during negotiations that will determine whether Putin can be adequately held accountable or «trusted» regarding future agreements.
Ukrainian soldiers work with «pion» artillery in the northern direction of the Donbass front line as the Russia-Ukraine war continues in Donetsk, Ukraine, Jan. 7, 2023. (Diego Herrera Carcedo/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
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Ultimately, Koffler said, Putin will not leave eastern Ukraine.
«Ukraine has always been a red line for Putin, in terms of who has geopolitical control of it, Russia or the West. And he will continue to enforce this red line,» she said. «The only way to ensure that Putin doesn’t invade another country is to make NATO strong again, beef up force posture, increase defense spending, secure its command-and-control networks and develop actual deterrence and counter-strategy that addresses every prong of Putin’s strategy.»
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