Ribbon Cut on a New Crimean War

A five-story apartment house on Prospekt Ostryakova stands blocks away from the Black Sea waterfront, but it has become the beachhead for a gathering Russian offensive to reclaim this strategic naval port and the rest of Crimea.

The 300-unit apartment house was built by Moscow Mayor Yuri M. Luzhkov to house Russian navy families in a gesture of solidarity with the servicemen who he heavily intimates have been sold out by the Kremlin in its deal with Ukraine to divide the Black Sea Fleet.

While the living space was sorely needed here, as in most crowded cities of the former Soviet Union, it has kindled hopes among Russians that the 4-month-old treaty dividing fleet ships and property might eventually be scuttled and Moscow’s authority reasserted over territory steeped in Russian history and blood.

When Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin signed the accord acknowledging Ukrainian sovereignty over Sevastopol and the rest of Crimea, Western analysts proclaimed it the most important step toward stability between the Slavic neighbors in the post-Soviet era.

But what was decided in Kiev and Moscow has not gone down well with the predominantly Russian residents here, and they are now pinning their hopes for reversal on the apparent presidential ambitions of Luzhkov and the recalcitrant parliaments in both capitals that have yet to ratify the deal.

Luzhkov has visited Crimea at least twice in recent months to ceremonially bequeath his construction projects with the clear message that Russian servicemen are here to stay.

Under the terms of the May 30 treaty signed by Yeltsin and Ukrainian President Leonid D. Kuchma, the vessels and personnel of the Russian Black Sea Fleet are here only as renters under a 20-year lease.

Long-term investments on the leased land, however, telegraph Moscow’s intent to stay--a message that has come through clearly to both sides in the unresolved territorial struggle.

“The image of Luzhkov is very high here in Sevastopol. He is a man of both word and deed. No one has done as much for this city as has Luzhkov,” says Capt. Andrei Grachev, spokesman for the Russian naval forces that share this most important southern port with the newly cleaved Ukrainian navy.

Although Grachev and other Russians in uniform decline to answer the “political question” of whether they accept their newfound role as renters on Ukrainian soil, their sentiments about this most prominent port in Russian naval history are easily fathomed, and those no longer serving their country are passionately outspoken.

“About this, Luzhkov is right. Sevastopol is a historic military city of Russia. All its major events and achievements are important chapters in Russian history,” says naval retiree Alexander Safonov.

Sevastopol and the geographically diverse Crimean peninsula on which it is located were taken by Russia in 1783 from the crumbling Ottoman Empire and made Russia’s vanguard in the ensuing wars with Western Europe. More than 250,000 Russians lost their lives in the Crimean War of 1853-56 that leveled Sevastopol. The city was destroyed again at the end of the Nazi occupation in World War II.

Soviet wartime leader Josef Stalin ordered Sevastopol rebuilt after designating it the home port of the Black Sea Fleet, and the imposing granite buildings and gardens flanking streets named for glorious battles and naval heroes testify to the priority that the late dictator placed on resurrecting the base.

But his successor, Nikita S. Khrushchev, reassigned Crimea from Russia to his native Ukraine in 1954, when both republics were united under the Soviet Union and deployed a single navy. Only with the Soviet Union breakup in 1991 did the battle for control of Sevastopol and its warships ignite.

The Russian speakers who make up more than two-thirds of the Crimean population and almost 90% of Sevastopol were so outraged by Ukrainian claims to rule the peninsula that they observed Moscow time--an hour later than elsewhere in Ukraine--from shortly after the Soviet breakup to March this year.

In recent years, Russian and Ukrainian leaders repeatedly announced breakthroughs in negotiating a division of the 700-vessel fleet. But each collapsed over the key issue of which side would inherit Sevastopol. For six years, the already-outdated fleet sat rusting and neglected, until Russia finally agreed in May to acknowledge Ukrainian sovereignty.

Both sides concede that the standoff devastated the battle-readiness of their navies. Since agreement on the division, more than 100 of the ships have been deemed beyond repair.

“We had to bring this ship back from ruins,” says Capt. Georgy Savchenko, commander of the Ukrainian navy’s amphibious assault ship Konstantin Olshanksky. “During all the haggling over who would get what, nothing was done to maintain any of the vessels.”

Ukraine’s concession, in what the leaders consider the final agreement on division, was to accept only 17% of the fleet’s assets and to settle for $92 million in rent from Russia for its port-leasing agreement--a fraction of the $800 million that Kiev had sought.

“This rent in no way corresponds to the true value of the premises, as we have leased the Russians the best docks and facilities in Sevastopol,” says Ukrainian navy spokesman Mykola Savchenko. “What this means is that Ukraine will be deprived of money to invest in a viable fleet for at least another 20 years.”

The Russian side too grouses about terms of the agreement and the myriad complications that have yet to be resolved. “Our retired servicemen are now at the mercy of the Ukrainian government for their pensions and benefits because they are considered citizens of Ukraine,” Grachev complains. “We also have no clear guidance on where Russian military courts and prosecutors have jurisdiction.”

The most daunting problem not addressed by the May agreement, he says, is the impossibility of differentiating between civilian and military activity in Sevastopol.

When Sevastopol was reconstructed from its postwar ruins, the entire city was a closed military base and even other Soviet citizens needed special permission to visit. As private enterprise has moved in during this era of free markets, the property lines among the military, the municipality and individual residents have blurred. Designating what remains under Ukrainian governance and what has been leased to Russia is a dilemma of daily concern.

With Russians making up the majority of the population here, the Ukrainian landlords retain a low profile for fear of escalating tensions. But members of the minority concede that they feel like intruders on their own land. Natural frictions are developing as two navies defending different countries try to share space when the facilities are scarce.

“I have to live with my parents because of the housing shortage,” says Sergei Dokshin, 23, a radar specialist with the Ukrainian navy. “We all get along, the Ukrainian and Russian sailors, because, after all, we were defending the same country until not too long ago. But the social problems wear on the atmosphere.”

Russian servicemen charge that the Ukrainian government has been claiming a disproportionate share of Sevastopol’s housing to relocate Ukrainians.

In this volatile atmosphere, Luzhkov’s gifts of apartment blocks have angered the Ukrainian authorities and given local Russians displeased with the division accord cause for hope. Thousands cheered Luzhkov when he cut the ribbon on the first new apartments in January with a declaration that “Sevastopol was and remains a Russian city.”

The clear majority, who long for Russian rule again, interpret Luzhkov’s proclamations as promises to rectify an unjust division based on Khrushchev’s gerrymandering when and if the Moscow mayor can do so.

“It is not too late to reunite Crimea with Russia, but it will be difficult under this current leadership,” Viktor Baibus, a Sevastopol motor pool driver, says in denouncing the agreement signed by Yeltsin. “Luzhkov is very brave to take on this cause, and we are all behind him.”

Luzhkov denied during his Crimea visits that he has his eye on a presidential run in 2000, when Yeltsin’s second term will be over. But the mayor’s far-flung travels and proclivity for extravagant gestures have political observers regularly listing him among Yeltsin’s potential successors.