MOSCOW SEEKS MORE EXCUSES FOR PROLONGING NAVAL PRESENCE IN SEVASTOPOL - NEWS

MOSCOW SEEKS MORE EXCUSES FOR PROLONGING NAVAL PRESENCE IN SEVASTOPOL
Print version

Published Saturday, October 25 2008

Eurasia Daily Monitor

October 23, 2008

MOSCOW SEEKS MORE EXCUSES FOR PROLONGING NAVAL PRESENCE IN SEVASTOPOL

For the first time since the Soviet era, Russia's Black Sea Fleet
undertook an offensive operation in August of this year when it attacked
Georgia, landing Russian ground forces in Abkhazia. The Russian Fleet,
mainly based in Sevastopol, misused Ukraine's territory and abused
Ukraine's neutrality in launching that operation. It did so with
impunity, underscoring the deficit of usable power, political
leadership, and international rule of law in the Black Sea region.

The Russian Fleet now plans to use the prized Ochamchire base on the
Abkhaz coast, which is legally sovereign Georgian territory (Vremya
Novostei, October 21; see EDM, October 22). The Turkish-Russian naval
condominium, which exists de facto in the Black Sea, did not inhibit the
Russian fleet from attacking Georgia.

In late September and the first half of October, ships of Russia's Black
Sea Fleet joined flag-showing exercises by the Russian Navy in the
Mediterranean Sea and visits to Soviet-era base locations there. While
the fleet's overall combat value is very low at present, Russia's
leaders think 10 years ahead in terms of ship-building plans, premised
on oil and gas revenues, for uncontested naval supremacy over
neighboring countries and a possible renewed presence in the
Mediterranean.

The Black Sea Fleet, moreover, seems potentially usable in the Crimea
much as the Russian ground troops proved usable in Abkhazia and
Transnistria, where their presence helped carve out a zone of Russian
control. The Crimea has not become a "hot spot" (conflict zone), as
Ukrainian officials such as State Security Service acting chairman
Valentyn Nalyvaichenko correctly point out (Izvestia, October 22). But
Moscow holds enough cards to hint at a potential conflict, for political
leverage over Kyiv's decisions on the Russian fleet and Kyiv-NATO
relations.

In their cumulative effect, these recent developments have clearly
enhanced the Black Sea Fleet's value in the eyes of Russia's leadership,
lending an added impetus to plans for retention of the Sevastopol base
in the future.

On October 22 Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergei Lavrov
announced that Russia would request Ukraine to prolong the stationing of
Russia's Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol beyond 2017, when the basing
agreement is due to expire. Lavrov said that Russia would not make its
proposal to Ukraine any time soon but "at some later stage, closer to
2017" (Interfax, October 22).

Such timing, however, would leave almost no room for Russian compliance
with the deadline, in the event that Ukraine turns down Moscow's
proposal. The Fleet's physical relocation from Sevastopol to Russian
territory would be a multi-year process and could be dragged out longer
than necessary by Russia. Starting the discussions with Ukraine "closer
to 2017" would, therefore, ensure the prolongation of the Russian
fleet's presence in Ukraine beyond the deadline, de facto if not de
jure.

The basing agreement, signed in 1997 and valid for a 20-year period, can
be prolonged automatically unless either side terminates it with
one-year advance notice. This procedure puts the onus on the Ukrainian
authorities. Moscow probably hopes that a divided Ukrainian government
and body politic may not be able to reach, sustain, and enforce a
decision to terminate the basing agreement.

Moscow is already laying out the strategy for retaining its naval
presence on Ukraine's territory in the future. The strategy includes
potentially coercive aspects as well as inducements.

On the coercive side, Russian officials including some at the top, are
openly questioning Ukraine's territorial integrity (also inspiring the
Duma to do this), with particular reference to the Crimea and
Sevastopol. The possibility of Moscow using local groups to "raise the
Russian flag" over Sevastopol and the Crimea, if Kyiv no longer accepts
hosting the Russian fleet, lurks distinctly in the background to the
continuing debates on the basing agreement (see EDM, February 14, April
4, 7, 10, 11, May 13, 14, June 18).

On the inducement side, the Russian government proposes to: a) increase
the rent it pays to Ukraine for leasing the Sevastopol base (a paltry
$98 million per year under the 1997 agreements); b) invest Russian funds
for the development of the civilian infrastructure in Sevastopol and the
Crimea, in the local population's interest (evidently an accompaniment
to naval base upgrading, if Ukraine prolongs the basing agreement); c)
place Russian state orders with Ukrainian military-industrial plants in
the Crimea and elsewhere in Ukraine (including the now-idle Ukrainian
shipyards along the seacoast, as well as certain favored plants on the
Ukrainian mainland). Russian Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov has held
out this package of incentives twice recently (Interfax, September 23;
Vremya Novostei, October 21).

Serdyukov also supervises (alongside Deputy Prime Minister Sergei
Ivanov) the naval base construction program. That program's Black Sea
dimension focuses on the expansion and modernization of the Novorossiysk
base until 2020. It now seems likely to include re-commissioning and
modernizing the ex-Soviet submarine base at Ochamchire.

The Black Sea Fleet also expects to be reinforced with new ships, some
new and others transferred from other Russian fleets. If those
reinforcements do materialize at Novorossiysk and Ochamchire, the
Kremlin will undoubtedly argue that it has nowhere to move the Feet from
Sevastopol ahead of 2017 and will use that additional excuse for
prolonging its naval presence on Ukrainian territory.

-Vladimir Socor