Ukraine Wants Russian Navy Out of Crimea - May 2008

Ukraine Wants Russian Navy Out of Crimea


The Ukrainian President has signed a decree ordering the Cabinet to prepare by July 20 a draft law on terminating all international agreements on the presence of Russia's Black Sea Fleet in Ukraine. Russia's navy currently uses a range of naval facilities in the Crimea under an agreement signed in 1997, under which Ukraine agreed to lease naval facilities to Russia until 2017. The May 16 resolution on measures to ensure Ukraine's status as a naval power, enacted by Viktor Yushchenko on May 20, was posted on his official website Wednesday. Disputes between Russia and Ukraine over the lease of the base are frequent. Russia currently pays $93 million per year to lease the base from its ex-Soviet neighbor, which is paid for with Russian energy supplies. Ukraine's intelligence services barred Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov on May 12 from entering the former Soviet republic over his "provocative" statements regarding the ownership of the Black Sea city of Sevastopol. Moscow's mayor made strong calls for the disputed ownership of a Russian naval base in Sevastopol to be transferred back to Russia. The head of the State Duma committee on CIS affairs, Alexei Ostrovsky, said in April that Russia could reclaim the Crimea if Ukraine was admitted to NATO. Media reported that President Vladimir Putin issued a similar threat at a closed-door speech to NATO leaders at the Bucharest summit earlier this month. Ukraine's Foreign Ministry confirmed last month that Russia had been invited to start talks in June on the withdrawal of its fleet from the Crimea, but said Moscow had yet to reply to the proposal.

Source: http://mnweekly.ru/politics/20080522/55330013.html

No love for NATO in Ukraine's pro-Russian enclave


Ukraine's pro-Western leaders hope to join NATO but the people of this Black Sea port, where Russian warships are moored at the quayside, want no part of it. "I just can't imagine that the boots of a NATO soldier may tread on this sacred land one day," said Vladimir, an 82-year-old pensioner, as he walked along the quay. "We want no NATO here," he said, his World War Two medals jangling on his chest. "This would mean to betray Russia." Sevastopol is in Ukraine but a majority of its residents are ethnic Russians and most regard it as a Russian town -- at least in terms of history, culture and emotion. That sentiment is reinforced by the presence here of the Russian navy's Black Sea fleet, and the fact that until 1954 the Crimea region that includes Sevastopol was part of Russia. "Imagine a NATO base in Sevastopol!" Vladimir Putin, then Russian president, said with an incredulous tone earlier this year after talks with Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko.

Ukraine says that cannot happen because its constitution bars the presence on its territory of any foreign bases other than the Russian Black Sea fleet. At a summit in Bucharest in April, NATO states agreed that Ukraine and Georgia could eventually join the Western military alliance, though they did not give a timetable. That angered Russia, which sees further NATO enlargement as a threat to its security and a new encroachment into its traditional sphere of influence. This month Sevastopol was again at the focus of the tension. Ukraine barred influential Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov from entering the country after a speech in the port in which he said Russia should take it back from Ukraine. Moscow responded by blocking a deputy Ukrainian minister from entering Russia.

RUSSIAN FLAGS

Ukrainian flags fly over public buildings and official signs are in Ukrainian language. But these are swamped by a sea of Russian tricolor flags flying from the Black Sea fleet headquarters, by white-and-blue St Andrew's flags flying from Russian warships and by the Soviet military pennants sold in local shops. Blue tents scattered around the town collect signatures for a referendum to have the Russian fleet kept here permanently. Moscow's $93-million-a-year lease runs out in 2017. "We won't give up our Sevastopol!" thousands of people chanted as they listened to Luzhkov address a rally to mark the 225th anniversary of the creation of the Black Sea fleet. The opposition in Sevastopol -- as well as large swathes of Ukraine's Russian-speaking east and south -- to NATO membership is more than a domestic problem for Yushchenko. Polls show only a third of Ukraine's population favors joining the alliance, and that split makes some NATO member states in Europe skeptical about bringing in Ukraine.

The Crimean peninsula was a part of the Russian republic of the Soviet Union until 1954, when Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev signed it over to the Ukrainian republic as a "token of brotherly love".

That mattered little when both republics were part of the Soviet Union, but when Ukraine gained independence in 1991 it became a ticking timebomb. Through the 1990s, as the new Ukrainian state established its credentials, Crimea was gripped by periodic outbursts of pro-Russian sentiment but has since been generally calm. ar veteran Vladimir, who refused to give his family name, said he remembered the contribution the United States made during World War Two, supplying tinned meat and vehicles to the Soviet war effort. "Yes, they were good allies during that war," he said. "But today they have turned their bayonets against us."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/world...82598320080524

Envoy Says Black Sea Fleet Might Stay


29 May 2008ReutersA Russian envoy said Wednesday that Russia could continue to base its Black Sea Fleet in Ukraine after a lease deal runs out in 2017, defying Kiev, which says it does not want an extension. Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko last week ordered his government to prepare legislation on ending the Russian Navy's presence in the port of Sevastopol in 2017, prompting complaints from Moscow that he was being hasty. "We have never concealed our willingness to keep our presence in Sevastopol after 2017," said Russian envoy Vladimir Dorokhin, who has been involved in Black Sea Fleet talks with Ukraine. "It has been there for 225 years, and it's only natural … that this area is ideal for its deployment. "We don't understand this haste," he said. "Why do they think we need nine years for the fleet's withdrawal? Why not 15 years or five, or four? In the end, this is our fleet, yes? So this must be our headache."

Source: http://www.moscowtimes.ru/article/1010/42/367817.htm

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