Russian warship notice sought

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By Svitlana Korenovska

Ukrainian military officials on Thursday vowed to uphold a decree ordering Russia to seek permission to move its Black Sea warships based in the Ukrainian port of Sevastopol, setting up a conflict between Russia and another pro-Western former Soviet republic.

"The president's decrees on the Black Sea fleet will, of course, be implemented on the territory of Ukraine," said Ukrainian Chief of Staff Serhiy Kyrychenko, according to the Unian news agency. "The Defense Ministry and the general staff are among those state bodies responsible for this task."

Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko on Wednesday issued the decree, which stated that Russia is required to notify Kiev of its warships' movements within Ukrainian territory at least 72 hours in advance.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Volodymyr Ohryzko said on Thursday that the measures undertaken by the government were an adequate response to a situation in which the Russian military is moving on the territory of Ukraine "as they wish." He noted that Russia has to respect international laws.

That means that Russian ships dispatched to support the military action in Georgia will have to seek Ukrainian authorization to return to the base in Crimea that Moscow leases from Ukraine.

The Russian Foreign Ministry called the move "a serious new anti-Russian step," and the deputy head of the Russian General Staff, Anatoly Nogovitsyn, dismissed the order as illegitimate.

"We have one general commander for the Black Sea fleet. It is the president of Russia," Mr. Nogovitsyn was quoted as saying.

The Russian navy was deployed to the Georgian coast during Russia's military incursion into Georgia in support of breakaway regions South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Ukraine backed Georgia in the dispute. The two countries have pro-Western governments and have been seeking to join the NATO military alliance.

The Georgian conflict has given rise to suggestions that disagreements between Ukraine and Russia could rekindle tension between the two neighbors over the port, which has long been a source of friction.

Ukraine wants the Russian navy out of its country before the $93-million-a-year lease expires in May 2017. Russia has stated that it wants the Black Sea fleet to remain headquartered in Sevastopol, with some Russian nationalists, including local members of parliament, voicing the ideas of reclaiming the port city of Sevastopol from Ukraine.

"Russia has never made a secret of its desire to retain its presence in Sevastopol after 2017," Adm. Vladimir Vysotsky, commander of the Russian navy, said last month.

But analysts say it's unlikely Russia will pursue a military scenario against Ukraine, to which it provides natural gas.

"The trajectory of Russian future pressure on Ukraine is already evident - in the form of increased natural gas prices," said John Daly, a Eurasian foreign affairs and defense policy expert for the Jamestown Foundation. "I think that a military clash is highly unlikely."