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| Russia Black Sea Fleet to remain in Ukraine until 2017 |
| 2005-04-26 |
| Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov said the Russian Black Sea Fleet would remain in Ukraine until 2017. "If your talk about the Black Sea Fleet, we have agreed to continue the work on details of the basic accords of 1997 with an understanding that the Russian Black Sea Fleet will be based in the Crimea and will continue its activity," Ivanov told reporters after his talks with Ukrainian counterpart Anatoly Gritsenko in Moscow on Tuesday. He was asked whether the Black Sea Fleet violated any accords with Ukraine. "As concerns some violations, they can be only when there are clear regulations as to what such violations are," Ivanov said. He said "many questions have not found any solution at all in the 1997 accords, and we have given orders on finalisation of the accords". This also concerns inspections of naval facilities and the resumption of live fire practices and missile launches at a testing ground near Feodosia. "Under the accord, it is Russian, many types of weapons, including those manufactured at enterprises of the Ukrainian industry, are tested there," Ivanov said. He stressed that Russia did not make a decision to speed up the construction of infrastructure facilities for the Black Sea Fleet on its territory. "We don't have any decisions on acceleration, we have a programme of building a site of basing of the Black Sea Fleet in Novorossiisk". "The ten-year programme has already begun to be implemented," Ivanov said. He added that the presence of the Black Sea Fleet in the Crimea fetched "certain material profits to Ukraine: in particular, the budget of Sevastopol is 60 percent formed by the Russian rouble". To lose the Black Sea Fleet would be as bad an ego blow to Russia as to lose Siberia. |
| Posted by:Anonymoose |