Sevastopol
Russia may have feare losing access to the Crimean port of Sevastopol, which Russia’s Black Sea Fleet has since Ukraine won independence from the Soviet Union. The Russian fleet rents the port until 2017. Russia may fear it would have to withdraw the fleet sooner rather than later if Yanukovych lost the presidential election. But Yushchenko has promised not to review the deal before 2017.
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.
