Ukrainian, Russian PMs sign pact on Black Sea Fleet (06/01/97)

Ukrainian, Russian PMs sign pact on Black Sea Fleet

by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - The prime ministers of Ukraine and Russia signed a historic accord on the division of the Black Sea Fleet on May 28 after five years of discussions, disagreements and controversy.

"Who won, who lost, that is history after today. We both won - Russia and Ukraine," said Russia's Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin, after he and Ukraine's Prime Minister Pavlo Lazarenko signed three documents on the disposition of the BSF at Mariinsky Palace, with Ukraine's President Leonid Kuchma in attendance.

Prime Minister Chernomyrdin called the signing "a truly epochal event."

The agreement gives Russia a 20-year lease on two of the four bays in the city of Sevastopol, located on the Crimean Peninsula in Ukraine, with a five-year option for renewal by permission of Ukraine. Beginning on June 12, Russian ships and troops will be stationed at bases in Sevastopol Bay and Quarantine Bay. Ukraine's ships will be kept in Striletskyi Bay, while Southern Bay will be de-militarized.

In addition, the Russian Navy will have use of the test range at Feodosia, the Hvardiiskyi Aerodrome and the Yalta Sanitorium, a communications station and a rocket fuel depot. Russia agreed to post no more than 25,000 military personnel at the bases, to limit Russian armor to 132 vehicles, artillery to 24 pieces with a caliber over 100 mm. and aircraft to 22. Russia also agreed that it would place no nuclear hardware on the leased lands.

Ukraine will receive from Russia cash payment of $526.5 million as compensation for the portion of the fleet that was given to Russia in 1994 in an agreement signed by President Yeltsin and then Ukrainian President Leonid Kravchuk.

Although the two prime ministers refused to divulge the amount Ukraine is charging Russia for use of its territory and infrastructures, as well as for ecological damage to its lands, Interfax-Ukraine reported that the compensation would occur through debt relief to Ukraine for oil and gas purchases from Russia.

The daily newspaper Den reported that during negotiations Ukraine had demanded $424.7 million a year, while Russia offered $72 million. In the end the two parties reached a compromise "in the middle ground," the newspaper quoted informed sources as saying. Interfax-Ukraine placed the figure at just under $100 million.

In another document signed by the prime ministers, the two sides also agreed that Ukraine is still due $200 million for fissionable materials that were exported to Russia in 1992 from dismantled tactical nuclear weaponry. The number was arrived at by balancing Ukraine's outstanding oil and gas debt for 1993-1994 against the value of the exported fissile materials, which was put at $450 million, according to Interfax-Ukraine.

The discussions, which were called "stressful" by President Kuchma's chief of staff, Yevhen Kushniarov, lasted three hours - twice the allotted time. They involved President Kuchma, both prime ministers and a host of ministers and support staff, and covered the most crucial part of the negotiations: where the Russian hardware and the troops would be located and how much would be allowed.

"The negotiations were not easy," said Ukraine's Prime Minister Lazarenko after the signing ceremony. "At times it was very tense."

More than 90 percent of the agreement was hammered out prior to the final talks by a committee jointly chaired by First Vice Prime Minister Vasyl Durdynets of Ukraine and Vice-Premier Valerii Serov of Russia in the 10 days prior to Prime Minister Chernomyrdin's one day visit to Kyiv.

Everything was based on a willingness to compromise, an unnamed Ukrainian official told Interfax-Ukraine on May 22, when word leaked out that an accord was imminent. "There was no issue on which either side refused to compromise."

Compromise was the one word that failed to come up in the previous attempts at dividing the fleet. Both sides played political games with the Black Sea Fleet issue, alternately showing a willingness to negotiate and then hard-headed intractability, retracting statements and interpreting the documents that were signed in various ways. The BSF issue has been at the center of friction between the two countries since the Soviet Union disintegrated and has included Russian assertions that the city of Sevastopol itself is Russian and should become Russian territory.

The two sides first reached agreement in principle on the fleet's division in Yalta on August 3, 1992. Signed by Presidents Kravchuk and Yeltsin, the document set out the principles for the formation of two fleets, the Black Sea Fleet of the Russian Navy and the Naval Forces of Ukraine. Almost a year later, on June 17, 1993, the two presidents signed a second agreement in Moscow that split the BSF evenly between Russia and Ukraine.

Three months later, on September 3, the Massandra Protocol was signed in Crimea. The controversial agreement, which many said was signed by President Kravchuk under duress because, allegedly, Russia had threatened an oil embargo on Ukraine, stated that "the whole of the BSF, together with its infrastructure in Crimea shall be used by Russia and be given Russian symbols with the understanding that the Russian side will carry out the settlement of accounts for half of the BSF along with infrastructure that was to be turned over to the Ukrainian side under the preceeding agreements."

The Massandra Protocol did little to clear up what was becoming a very complicated and messy state of affairs between Moscow and Kyiv. In fact many were not sure how to understand the convoluted statement released. So on April 15, 1994, the two presidents met again and agreed to a straight forward splitting of the naval hardware. Ukraine would give Russia 32 percent of the 50 percent that it had received in 1993 as repayment to Russia of a serious energy debt. However, negotiations stalled at the point when discussion turned to divvying up the bases because Russia was demanding all of Sevastopol for its fleet.

At Sochi on June 9, 1996, more progress was made toward the division of the fleet when Presidents Yeltsin and Kuchma signed a statement declaring that Sevastopol would be home to "the bulk of the Black Sea Fleet." The document said that "the Russian BSF is entitled to the use of the Black Sea facilities in the city of Sevastopol and other points of stationing and disposition of the ships, air force, coastal troops, and objects of operational, combat, technical and logistic support in Crimea."

In the last year negotiations had steadily proceeded between Ministers Durdynets and Serov, notwithstanding attempts to derail the process by politicians such as Moscow's Mayor Yurii Luzhkov, who traveled to Sevastopol during the winter to proclaim that "Sevastopol was and will be a Russian city." The efforts of Messrs. Durdynets and Serov finally led to the agreement reached with the signing at Mariinsky Palace.

The document set the stage for the first official state visit by Russian President Boris Yeltsin to Kyiv on May 30, at which time he and President Leonid Kuchma were expected to finally put their signatures to a comprehensive treaty on friendship and cooperation between Russia and Ukraine. "Today we prepared the essential foundation for the visit by President Yeltsin and for the final talks that will lead to the big treaty," said Mr. Chernomyrdin at Mariinsky Palace.

That may well be, but given the unstable and heated history of contemporary Ukraine-Russia relations and the many aborted planned visits by President Yeltsin to Kyiv in the past several years, it is best to keep in mind that oft-quoted American adage: "It's not over 'til the fat lady sings."

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