Russian officials last week once more cast doubt on the Kremlin’s commitment to withdraw from the Black Sea port city of Sevastopol in 2017 as the war of words over Ukraine’s NATO ambitions continued to escalate. Speaking on May 27 Russia’s special envoy to the Black Sea fleet Vladimir Dorokhin commented: “We have never concealed our willingness to maintain our presence in Sevastopol after 2017. We don’t understand this haste. 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. Ukraine has the legitimate right to adopt any decisions it deems important, but they should not run counter to our national interests or make us give them up.” Russia’s 20-year lease on the Black Sea port of Sevastopol is due to expire in 2017, but since the 2004 Orange Revolution launched Ukraine on an independent foreign policy trajectory doubts have been raised over whether Russia will leave the port without a fight. The situation has been further enflamed by the January 2008 decision of the ruling Orange coalition government to apply to NATO for a Membership Action Plan.
Despite the fact that the military alliance stopped short of issuing Ukraine with a road map to future membership during its annual April summit meeting, relations between Kyiv and Moscow have deteriorated significantly in the past few months. Moscow mayor Yuri Luzhkov was banned from entering Ukraine earlier this month following inflammatory remarks made in the city during celebrations to mark the 225th anniversary of the founding of the Black Sea Fleet which implied that Russia had a legal right to Sevastopol.
Russia’s wounded national pride
Mr. Luzhkov defended himself by claiming that he was simply voicing opinions shared by most Russians, a sentiment that appears to be borne out by an opinion poll released last week which showed that over two thirds of Russians believe that Sevastopol should belong to their country. A mere 5% of respondents said that the city should remain part of Ukraine, while 27% were undecided on the matter.
The percentage of those who think that Sevastopol must be part of Russia is lower among people aged 18-24 (59%) than among older respondents (66-7%), but it remains a worryingly high percentage given that these younger respondents have no personal memory of Sevastopol as a Russian or soviet city and are basing their opinions largely on the information they have been fed via Russia’s state-controlled media. More than half (56%) of those who believe that Sevastopol should belong to Russia explained their position by saying that it had been a Russian city in the past. Other respondents (6-7%) said that Sevastopol is a strategically important port and a site of Russia’s military glory. Meanwhile, 31% of respondents said that it was more important to return Sevastopol to Russia than to maintain good relations with Ukraine, compared to 18% of Russians who believe otherwise, saying that the Sevastopol card should be played to blackmail Ukraine while discussing geopolitical issues.
Disputes between Russia and Ukraine over the lease of the base are frequent. Many Russians, as well as some of Crimea’s ethnic Russian majority, would like to see Russia regain control of the region , particularly Sevastopol, a strategic port city that they consider integral to Russia’s national security.
Kremlin indignation and the Near Abroad
Tensions between Russia and Ukraine entered a new phase in May when President Viktor Yushchenko ordered the Cabinet to draft by July 20 a law terminating all international agreements on the presence of Russia’s Navy in Sevastopol. The move followed Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov’s recent claim that a legal case existed for ceding Sevastopol to Russia. The Russian Foreign Ministry warned that the move “would not strengthen the atmosphere of trust” between the two countries.
Russia’s Black Sea Fleet currently uses a range of naval facilities in Ukraine’s Crimea under an agreement signed in 1997. Moscow’s USD 93 million-per-year lease runs out in 2017. The Crimean peninsula was part of the Russian Empire and later Soviet Russia until the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev returned it to Ukraine in 1954. During his controversial May speech Mr. Luzhkov stressed that Mr. Khrushchov’s decree was never meant to include Sevastopol, comments which President Yushchenko described as “humiliating.”
Even in Russia itself Luzhkov’s statement was not welcomed by everyone. “Luzhkov was wrong. His statement did more harm than good. Many Orange politicians were rubbing their hands with glee. They need such statements in order to demonstrate Russia’s imperial role and to prove that Russia encroaches on their sovereignty,” said Dmitry Rogozin, the Russian Ambassador to NATO. However, despite his preference for more diplomatic approaches Rogozin also argued that the Russian Black Sea Fleet should remain in Sevastopol after 2017. “There is no need to move and nowhere to withdraw the fleet to. Sevastopol was created as the Black Sea Fleet’s main base.” He argued, adding that if Ukraine fails to prolong the term of the lease, the fleet “should be sunk in Sevastopol Bay.”
Ratcheting up the rhetoric
The more independent and European-minded Ukraine tries to be, the louder and more direct the threats become from its northern neighbour. Former Russian President Vladimir Putin’s threat to target Russia’s nuclear missiles at Ukraine if the country joins NATO was the talk of the town earlier in the year. Following Mr. Putin’s notification, one of the Duma’s top lawmakers said that Russia could reclaim Crimea if Ukraine was admitted to NATO. The head of the Duma’s Defence and Security committee, Viktor Ozerov, warned that if Ukraine decides to expel the Russian Black Sea Fleet from its territory, Russia could respond by reclaiming Crimea, together with Sevastopol as part of a unilateral revision of the existing Friendship and Co-operation Treaty between the two countries.
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 that Moscow had yet to reply to the proposal. Foreign Minister Volodymyr Ohryzko stressed: “This does not mean that we seek to force them out of Ukraine.” He stated that Ukraine does not want the Black Sea Fleet withdrawal to complicate bilateral ties and questioned Russia’s intention to withdraw from the Treaty. “To my mind, the Russian leaders clearly realise the importance of this document for Ukrainian-Russian relations,” said Ukraine’s top diplomat. “Let it remain speculation,” he added.
Ukraine committed to keeping Crimea
Ukrainian analysts have responded to Russian bluster with their own claims that Sevastopol was, is and will remain a Ukrainian city, while Crimea in general will remain Ukrainian. “Ukraine’s territorial integrity and sovereignty was recognised by the entire world, including Russia,” comments Valeriy Chalyi, one of Ukraine’s leading Russian-Ukrainian relations experts with the Kyiv-based Razumkov think tank. He called recent Russian official statements about the potential revision of the Co-operation Treaty a “provocation” and described it as a “kind of a test for the Ukrainian elite on its ability to defend the country’s interests.”
Mr. Chalyi also stressed that Ukraine has been split over its priorities since independence, with the West and centre of the country moving towards Europe and the East towards Russia. “This polarisation has become a stable, engrained trend over the past few years. Politicians manipulate it, pledging EU membership during appearances in the West and friendship with Russia while campaigning in the East. The result is the lack of an integrated Ukrainian nation.”
The EU’s march east
Renewed Russian attempts to place obstacles in Ukraine’s path towards integration with Euro-Atlantic structures come at a time when the country’s prospects of closer ties with the EU and the West in general have never been better. President Yushchenko received a resounding welcome in Canada last week during a state visit in which Canadian leaders reaffirmed their commitment to supporting Ukraine’s NATO bid, while at a meeting in Brussels on May 26, EU foreign ministers discussed a joint Polish-Swedish proposal for the creation of an Eastern Partnership designed to strengthen relations with Ukraine.
This new policy towards the EU’s eastern borderland states would include Armenia, Azerbaijan, Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova and Belarus in its overall scope, but officials were at pains to emphasise that Kyiv was very much the focus of the new policy. “First and foremost Ukraine would benefit from this; others would follow according to ambition and performance,” the proposal read. This proposed “deepened bilateral co-operation” would include cooperation on migration, visa facilitation and eventual liberalisation, free trade, EU support for economic and political reforms, and student exchange programmes. The idea has received broad support from EU member states, many of whom remain sceptical of offering Ukraine a roadmap to full membership and would rather keep the giant east European borderland at arm’s length. “We do think it’s time to look to the east and see what we can do to strengthen democracy, increase the European perspective, and improve cooperation across the range with these countries,” Sweden’s Foreign Minister Carl Bildt commented.
Also last week French President Nicolas Sarkozy confirmed that he would press for closer ties and what he termed as “an ambitious partnership” between the EU and Ukraine when his country takes on the rotating six-month EU presidency in July. Speaking in Warsaw the French head of state talked up Ukraine’s credentials as a European state, commenting: “When we are in Kyiv, we are in a truly European city.”
