Three Royal Navy vessels were decommissioned following the Strategic Defence Review in 2003; Sandown (January 2005), Inverness (April 2005) and Bridport (July 2004).

[6] The 2021 defence white paper announced that all mine countermeasures vessels in the Royal Navy would be retired during the 2020s and replaced by automated systems.

[8] They will be replaced with autonomous minehunting systems and specialized "motherships" deployed either by the Royal Fleet Auxiliary (RFA) or new-build ships as reportedly preferred by the navy.

[10][11][12] In June 2021, during a visit by HMS Defender to Odesa, it was revealed that an agreement had been reached for two Sandown class ships to be transferred to the Ukrainian Navy upon decommissioning.

[16] In September 2022, HMS Shoreham was spotted operating around Firth of Forth carrying the name Cherkasy (Ukrainian: Черкаси) and the pennant number M311.