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Further Reading

Sevastopol

Following the election of Viktor Yanukovych to the post of President of Ukraine, Russia managed to secure on April 21, 2010, an extension to its lease of its Black Sea Fleet's base in Crimea. The lease, originally due to expire in 2017, was extended for an additional 25 years. In addition, press reports indicated that the agreement allowed for the lease to be thereafter renewed for an additional five years.

In exchange for the new lease deal, Russia pledged to cut the price of Russian natural gas for Ukraine. According to terms of the deal, Russian President Medvedev stated that Ukraine would "get a $100 discount on the price of gas if the price is higher than $330 per 1,000 cubic meters, or a 30-percent discount if the price is lower". Under the prior 10-year deal negotiated in 2009 by then Ukrainian President Yuschenko, Ukraine had been paying over $300 per 1,000 cubic meters of gas. The discount was to apply to 30 billion cubic meters of natural gas to be supplied to Ukraine in 2010 and 40 billion cubic meters during the following years.

The Russian Black Sea fleet has rented naval facilities at the port city of Sevastopol since Ukraine gained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. Sevastopol is located on the Crimean penninsula. The naval port facilities are very large, and much of the local Crimean economy benefits from the Russian presence. Russia's lease on the base was originally due to expire in 2017. There was a real chance that Ukraine's government, under the presidence of Viktor Yuschenko, which had been at odds with Russia over a number of issues, would not have renewed the agreement, forcing the Russian fleet to relocate. Ukranian President Yushchenko had promised not to review the deal before 2017. The 2010 election of Viktor Yanukovych, more closely aligned with Russia, made it possible for the negotiating of a new lease extension on the naval facility.

In 2004 Sergei Ivanov, the Russian Defence Minister, announced plans to start building a new naval base in 2005 at the southern Russian port of Novorossiysk. He insisted that the Black Sea fleet would remain in Sevastopol, for which Moscow paid $6.4 million in rent in 2003 and is expected to pay $12 million in 2004. "Two bases are always better than one," he said.

Russia's announcement in early 2009 that it would build a naval base in the Abkhaz port of Ochamchire--which became independent, along with the rest of Abkhazia, from Georgia after the 2008 war--led some to speculate that Russia was hedging its bets against losing Sevastopol by preemptively acquiring naval bases elsewhere in the Black Sea. However, the Ochamchire facilities and coastal geography are significantly inferior to those at Sevastopol, and for now the new base appears to be a mere supplement to existing naval power projection.