Black Sea Fleet Is All Russia’s, Yeltsin Insists

Russian Federation President Boris N. Yeltsin, locked in a potentially explosive dispute with Ukraine over control of the Black Sea Fleet, put his foot down on Thursday, declaring that the fleet “was, is, and will remain Russia’s.”

But Ukraine continued to assert its right to the 400-vessel fleet on its southern shores. President Leonid M. Kravchuk argued that Ukraine, as an independent nation, “has a right to its own armed forces” and that Ukrainians pay for most of the fleet’s upkeep.

The wrangling between the two powerhouses of the Commonwealth of Independent States, although so far confined to a war of words, threatened to develop into a full-blown crisis, the new grouping’s first since it was formed last month from the remains of the Soviet Union.

And the angry protests from many Black Sea Fleet officers heightened the confusion and agitation in the military, brought on by Ukraine’s precipitous move this month to take over all former Soviet forces on its territory.

The dispute “has created a dangerous ferment among the troops,” said Col. Gen. Boris Pyankov, deputy commander in chief of the Commonwealth’s armed forces and head of its group of military experts. “People have no clarity.”

It has also unleashed surges of Russian and Ukrainian nationalism, with leading Russian politicians lashing out at Ukraine for its aggressive claims to the fleet and Ukraine stubbornly resisting what its leaders denounce ever more openly as old-style Russian imperialism.

Kravchuk announced last week that all former Soviet service personnel serving on Ukrainian territory must swear their loyalty to Ukraine, leaving many of the estimated 1.3 million troops there in a quandary about whether to take the oath or refuse and try to be transferred to their ethnic homelands.

The move brought loud objections from Russian and Commonwealth officials, but it is Ukraine’s claims to the Black Sea Fleet, created in 1783 mainly to counter Turkey and to project Russian power outward through the sea’s warm-water ports, that provoked direct confrontation with the Russian leadership.

The fleet’s main home territory, the Crimean Peninsula, was conquered by Russia about 200 years ago but given over to Ukraine in 1954.

“No one can take the Black Sea Fleet away from Russia, not even Kravchuk,” Yeltsin said with typical bluntness during a visit to the Russian city of Ulyanovsk on Thursday. “The Black Sea Fleet was, is and will remain Russia’s.”

Yeltsin also sent a message to Black Sea Fleet sailors telling them they are all “under the protection of the Russian president” and should not take the Ukrainian oath, the Tass news agency reported.

Adm. Igor Kasatonov, the commander, has refused to hand the fleet to the Ukrainian military; he has been backed up by the acting commander in chief of the former Soviet military, Air Marshal Yevgeny I. Shaposhnikov.

Kasatonov, speaking at a meeting between about 200 Ukraine-based officers and Kravchuk in Kiev on Thursday, argued that the Black Sea Fleet was integral to the Commonwealth navy and “dismembering it would be like dismembering living flesh.”

Kravchuk, in turn, disputed Russian claims to the fleet and complained that the unified military leadership, which is supposed to command “strategic forces” across the Commonwealth territory, is defining “strategic” too broadly.

Russia claims to be the legal successor to the Soviet Union, he said, but “that doesn’t make it one. I could say that I’m an opera singer but that doesn’t mean I can get up on a stage and sing. There are international norms.”

Ukraine has been paying for the fleet’s maintenance beginning this month, he said, and “if this is Russia’s fleet, then Russia should pay for it with its own money. If it’s held in common,” he added, “that’s a different question.”

Yeltsin, too, hinted at a willingness to reconcile with Ukraine by softening his declaration on the fleet with the addendum that, despite the disagreement, “Russia is trying to build normal relations with Ukraine.”

But the Black Sea Fleet dispute has gotten so heated and made so little progress toward resolution because each of the three parties involved--Yeltsin, Kravchuk and Shaposhnikov--has powerful reasons not to compromise, Russian Television commented on Thursday.

Kravchuk must keep in step with the powerful nationalist sentiment now dominating Ukrainian politics, it said, and Shaposhnikov is concerned only with keeping the former Soviet military together long enough to ensure a smooth transition to its new Commonwealth structures.

As for Yeltsin, the television commentary said: “The loyalty of the army . . . in Russia is more important for Yeltsin now than a temporary--until the next argument--pacification of Ukraine. This mix of interests doesn’t promise simple relations between Russia and Ukraine in the near future.”

The Black Sea Fleet, according to the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies, numbers some 45 surface warships, 28 submarines and 300 other vessels, plus 151 combat fixed-wing aircraft and 85 helicopters.

Russia has already slipped away the jewel of the fleet, the aircraft carrier Kuznetsov, to its own waters. Pyankov said the Commonwealth leaders have proposed that Ukraine, which has about 450 miles of Black Sea shoreline, take five shore bases and several more units to make up a command center, but Ukrainian officials turned them down.

Further worrying Commonwealth military officials, Ukraine has taken over a command and communications system that linked the central military command in Moscow with troops controlling battlefield nuclear weapons, Nezavisimaya Gazeta, or Independent Newspaper, reported Thursday.

The longer the dispute over Ukraine’s formation of its new armed forces goes on, the louder grow the complaints from soldiers and officers who feel caught in the middle.

The 200 officers who met in Kiev on Thursday issued a document mainly approving of Ukraine’s military plans, and Ukrainian defense officials claim that 90% of the officers of the Black Sea Fleet are willing to swear loyalty to Ukraine and obey Kravchuk as their new commander in chief.

But more than 1,000 protesters in Sebastopol, one of the fleet’s main bases, called on Black Sea sailors to resist Ukraine’s demands for their loyalty and remain part of a unified Commonwealth navy.

Times special correspondent Mary Mycio, in Kiev, contributed to this report.

Fighting for the Fleet

Russia is locked in a potentially explosive dispute with Ukraine over control of the Black Sea Fleet on Ukraine’s southern shore. The wrangling between the two powerhouses of the Commonwealth of Independent States threatened to develop into a full-blown crisis, the new grouping’s first since it was formed last month from the remains of the Soviet Union.

Main Fleet: Fleet based in Sevastopol. Fleet contains: 45 surface warships, 28 submarines, 300 other vessels. 151 fixed-wing combat aircraft and 85 helicopters.