Russia, Ukraine at odds over naval base

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(China Daily)
Updated: 2009-07-16 09:41

NOVOROSSIISK, Russia: Russia indicated on Tuesday it hoped to keep Ukraine's city of Sebastopol as the main base for its Black Sea Fleet after the expiry of its lease with Ukraine in 2017, although it is building a new base.

"We are not setting such a target - to depart from Sebastopol - for ourselves," General Nikolai Makarov, head of Russia's general staff, said of the port that has been home to the Russian fleet for 225 years.

Russia's President Dmitry Medvedev inspects paratrooper's small arms and equipment at the Rayevsky firing range in Novorossiisk during his visit to the Southern Federal District, July 14, 2009. Picture taken July 14, 2009. [Agencies]

Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev transferred the peninsula of Crimea, in which the port lies, from Russia to the then Soviet republic of Ukraine in 1954, which meant the base became Ukrainian property when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.

Ukraine, which wants closer ties with the West and NATO membership, has said it will not extend Russia's 20-year lease when it expires in 2017.

Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko was upset that Russia used the fleet against Georgia during a brief war last August.

"We have an agreement in force until 2017. Without a doubt, events can later develop in different directions," Makarov told reporters.

Russian politicians and the military have repeatedly said Moscow would like to continue renting Sebastopol after the lease expires.

Earlier on Tuesday the Kremlin announced it would finish building a new base for the fleet by 2016 in Novorossiisk, a statement widely understood to mean this would replace Sebastopol.

But Makarov said it could be in addition to Sebastopol.

"We are overseeing the construction of facilities of the Black Sea fleet also for the Novorossiisk region," he said, adding that cleaning the seabed in Novorossiisk is "quite a long process".

President Dmitry Medvedev flew to Novorossiisk, visiting the fleet's flagship, the Moskva missile cruiser, one of the best remaining ships of a once-formidable navy run down in the post-Soviet era.

The fate of the Sebastopol base has strong political overtones, seen as it is by Russian nationalists as an eternal part of Russia.

Russian-Ukrainian relations have been tense in recent years, with crises erupting over Russian gas deliveries to Ukraine.

The new base will hold 80 warships and auxiliary vessels, including newly built ships, and will not disturb the work of the commercial port there, the Kremlin said in its statement.

Fuel deal postponed

Ukrainian national nuclear energy company Energoatom has delayed signing a series of deals with Russian state-owned nuclear fuel company TVEL, local media reported.

Energoatom and TVEL were scheduled to sign a contract on the supply of fresh nuclear fuel to Ukraine after 2010 and a memorandum on the construction of a plant to produce fuel for Ukrainian nuclear power plants yesterday, the Ukrainian newspaper Delo reported, citing a source close to the negotiation process.

Ukraine operates four nuclear power plants, which generated over 90,000 GWh in 2008. The country mines uranium, but has no industrial capacity for its enrichment. All of Ukraine's nuclear fuel is imported from Russia under an agreement that expires in 2010.

Ukraine has also started cooperation with US-based Westinghouse. The company supplies fuel to the South Ukraine nuclear power plant, whose reactors were designed to operate on Russian fuel.

At the same time, if Energoatom signs a deal with Russia's TVEL on nuclear fuel supplies until 2026, the expediency of continuing cooperation with Westinghouse will be questioned, the paper noted.

The Ukrainian-Russian talks were being delayed over TVEL's attempt to consolidate entire nuclear fuel cooperation with Ukraine into a single package of long-term contracts slated for signing, Delo said.

Reuters- Xinhua