MOSCOW, Aug 27 – Russia accused Kiev of attempting to seize property belonging to its Black Sea Fleet in Ukraine on Thursday, in a sign of escalating tension between the two ex-Soviet neighbours.
Russia’s Black Sea Fleet said it had barred Ukrainian court bailiffs as they tried to seize navigation eqiupment at a lighthouse in Khersones, on the outskirts of the Ukrainian Crimean port city of Sevastopol – home to the Russian fleet for more than two centuries.
Russian television showed fleet servicemen in full combat gear with submachine guns at the ready forming a chain to guard the territory of the lighthouse.
Bailiffs were shown being handed over to Ukraine’s police by the Russians.
With the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia’s Black Sea fleet found itself based on territory belonging to independent Ukraine. Kiev has told Moscow it must abandon the base at Sevastopol when a 20-year lease expires in 2017, but Russia wants to extend the arrangement.
Thursday’s incident highlighted the emotional nature of the Sevastopol dispute, part of broader tensions between the two countries that have led to interruption of gas supplies to Europe and harsh exchanges between their leaders.
“The command of the Black Sea Fleet warns that the responsibility for possible tragic consequences of such incidents will rest entirely with those organising such provocations,” the fleet said in a statement posted on the Russian Defence Ministry’s Web site www.mil.ru.
It said only Russian laws were valid on the territory of Russian Black Sea Fleet facilities, despite it being in Ukraine.
Ukraine accused its neighbour of “twisting the facts”, Interfax news agency reported, citing a source in Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry.
BROTHERLY LOVE
“The incident...(reflects a wish) to blame the Ukrainian side for the escalation of conflict,” the agency quoted him as saying. It gave no details of Ukraine’s version of events.
Ukrainian officials could not be immediately reached for comment. Officials in Kiev had said earlier that despite the fact some facilities like lighthouses are under Russia’s jurisdiction, Ukraine may claim its rights to them because they are deployed on lands that do not belong to Russia’s military.
The issue of Sevastopol and Russia’s Black Sea Fleet deployed there is a painful irritant in the icy relations between former imperial master Moscow and Kiev, which has been seeking closer ties with the West and Nato membership.
In 1954, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev gave Russia’s Crimean peninsula to Ukraine in a gesture of “brotherly love”. The act had little beyond symbolic importance at the time as Russia and Ukraine formed part of the Soviet Union under Kremlin control.
Ukrainian refusal to accept any extension has angered Moscow and pro-Russian locals, who see Sevastopol as the natural home of the Russian fleet. – Reuters
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